Inkjet printing of gadolinium-doped ceria electrolyte on NiO-YSZ substrates for solid oxide fuel cell applications

A sol–gel-based precursor solution of gadolinium-doped ceria (CGO) was developed for deposition by inkjet printing. A stable precursor was synthesised by dissolving stoichiometric amounts of cerium (III) acetate hydrate and gadolinium (III) acetate hydrate in propionic acid, and diluted to 0.75 M with 1-propanol. The sintering behaviour of the printed precursor was investigated. Since the commonly used method of dilatometry is only applicable to bulk samples, an alternative approach using Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) has been explored. The sintering temperature of the printed precursor was estimated by subtracting contributions from energy stored due to heat capacity and activation energy of ionic mobility from the DSC heat flow signal. Based on this modelling it was found that the optimum sintering temperature of the acetate-based CGO precursor was 1100 ± 55 °C, a result independently confirmed by SEM imaging of printed precursor coating on NiO-YSZ cermet. A gadolinium-doped ceria (CGO) thin film was then directly deposited on a porous NiO-YSZ cermet anode composite by inkjet printing. After co-sintering, it was shown that crack-free and continuous coating thinner than 10 μm of CGO can be readily produced. These results suggest that the inkjet printing technique can be successfully implemented to fabricate a thin film of dense electrolyte (>98%) for solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) applications.