Solid Oxide Fuel Cells（SOFCs）deserves extensive research and application to reduce the environmental risk. Anode-supported planar SOFCs are widely used because of their superior performance and multi-layered structure that comprise supported anode (400μm), anode function layer (15μm), electrolyte (10μm) and active cathode (30μm). Good cell performance, which includes power density and degradation, is a premise for SOFC commercialization. However, due to the thin cell components and complex physical and chemical reactions, traditional measurements (e.g., EIS and I–V measurement) do not distinguish between the quantitative effects of cell components on cell performance and degradation mechanisms. Meanwhile, common I–V measurement or EIS can only obtain variation patterns in a unit cell rather than in the individual cell components. These obstacles make the research of cell performance run into a bottleneck.
The SOFC group from the Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, CAS developed a novel method that embeds Pt voltage probes into triple-phase boundary (Fig 1), and initiatively obtained the unit cell with inner voltage probes (Fig 2). The quantitative contributions of the anode, the cathode, and the electrolyte to cell performance were also investigated and found：(1)The cell output performance was determined by the property of electrode/electrolyte TPB；(2)The variation in cell resistance was mainly attributed to the increase in anode polarization resistance；(3)The output voltage of the unit cell was more sensitive to ohmic resistance.
Fig.1 Schematic diagram of the embedment of Pt voltage probes
Fig.2 SEM micrograph of internal Pt electrodes within the cell
This research broke through the existing bottleneck of cell performance research, and initiatively determined the effect of cell components on performance. In addition, this process can provide a new technical approach to the characterization of SOFC interface property and an experimental reference on improving cell performance for anode-supported planar SOFCs.
This work was published on Advanced Energy Materials, DOI: 10.1002/ aenm.201400120
Prof. Weiguo Wang wgwang@nimte.ac.cn
Research Group Url: http://english.nimte.cas.cn/rh/rd/fcnet/fcnet_research_interests/
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