Improved mesostructured oxygen electrodes for highly performing solid oxide cells for co-electrolysis of steam and carbon dioxide

Abstract

Next-generation mesoporous cerium oxide scaffolds are synthesized for the fabrication of highly performing solid oxide cells by introducing a hard-template nanocasting synthesis route which comprises chemical post-treatments.

Solid Oxide Cell Electrode Nanocomposites Fabricated by Inkjet Printing Infiltration of Ceria Scaffolds

“…Cells with a commercial CGO scaffold present similar values (1.23 ± 0.01, 1.23 ± 0.02 and 1.29 ± 0.01 eV for CGO, 5-CGO and 10-CGO cells, respectively) while a slight increase is observed employing the mesoporous scaffold (1.38 ± 0.04 eV). This difference could be caused by either the presence of small amounts of silica contamination (≈1 wt%), due to the incomplete removal of the employed mesoporous template, or dopant segregation to the interfaces, as previously reported by the authors [36,96]. Concerning ASR pol values, a clear difference in resistance scaffolds with and without infiltration is observed (due to the lack of a catalytic phase in the functional layer).…”

“…Localized barrier layer discontinuities are reported in the microstructural characterization section (Figure 3). As mentioned earlier, previous works of the group pointed out the better efficiency and the good morphology granted by alternative deposition techniques such as PLD for CGO barrier layers [15,36].…”

“…After the complete dissolution of PVP and glycine, the precursors were added one by one, under continuous stirring. The formulation of the LSCF sol-gel solution was optimized for handmade infiltration in previous works of the group to achieve good permeability inside the ceramic backbone [35][36][37].…”

“…In particular, nanocomposites based on mesoporous ceria backbones demonstrate excellent performance as electrodes for SOC applications [21][22][23][24]. Mesoporous materials are characterized by small porosity (2-50 nm in diameter), a high surface area (>100 m 2 g −1 ) [25][26][27], and good percolation pathways, which mitigate problems associated with local high current densities in SOC operation [28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37]. The synthesis of mesoporous materials typically involves the impregnation of sacrificial templates such as SiO 2 that, after calcination, are removed by chemical etching.…”

Visualizing local fast ionic conduction pathways in nanocrystalline lanthanum manganite by isotope exchange-atom probe tomography

“…as fuel cell cathodes) is based on MIEC/oxygen conductive uorites (doped ceria or zirconia) composites. [10][11][12] Enhancing the bulk conductivity of MIECs is therefore of primary importance for activating the bulk reaction and oxygen transport path and providing a potentially superior alternative to triple phase boundarybased SoA composites. Recent works have demonstrated a substantial enhancement of surface exchange rate and oxygen diffusivity, with respect to the bulk, for example at grain boundaries (GBs) of La 0.8 Sr 0.2 MnO 3 (LSM), a model interfacedominated MIEC.…”