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A New Vapor Deposition Method to Form Composite Anodes for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells
Author(s) -
Tang Eric Z.,
Etsell Thomas H.,
Ivey Douglas G.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
journal of the american ceramic society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.9
H-Index - 196
eISSN - 1551-2916
pISSN - 0002-7820
DOI - 10.1111/j.1151-2916.2000.tb01441.x
Subject(s) - anode , materials science , overpotential , solid oxide fuel cell , oxide , composite number , chemical vapor deposition , polarization (electrochemistry) , electrode , current collector , electrochemistry , chemical engineering , composite material , nanotechnology , metallurgy , chemistry , engineering , electrolyte
A solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) is a complete solid‐state energy conversion device with the potential advantages of high efficiency, silent operation, and low emissions. However, the current performance of SOFCs is still limited by a number of problems. Investigations in this field have indicated that it is imperative to fabricate efficient and compatible anodes for SOFCs to minimize polarization loss and to concurrently achieve long‐term stability. In this paper, a critical review of previous studies is given and several criteria for the theoretically ideal anode are summarized. Accordingly, a newly developed vapor deposition technique, polarized electrochemical vapor deposition (PEVD), is applied to fabricate composite anodes to meet these criteria. The initial experimental results in the present study show that PEVD is capable of depositing a thin layer of yttria‐stabilized zirconia on a porous metallic electrode to form a composite anode. This will not only provide continuous ionic and electronic conducting paths in the anode to reduce the overpotential loss and resistance, but also protect the metallic electrode from further sintering, vapor loss, and poisoning in the harsh SOFC operating conditions.