Operation Protocols To Improve Durability of Protonic Ceramic Fuel Cells

To develop reliable and durable protonic ceramic fuel cells (PCFCs), the impacts of the operation protocols of PCFCs on the cell durability are investigated through analyses of the main degradation mechanisms. We herein propose three appropriately designed control protocols, including cathode air depletion, shunt current, and fuel cell/electrolysis cycling, to fully circumvent the operating-induced degradation of PCFCs. For this purpose, anode-supported cells, comprised of a NiO–BaCe0.7Zr0.1Y0.1Yb0.1O3−δ anode, BaCe0.7Zr0.1Y0.1Yb0.1O3−δ electrolyte, and NdBa0.5Sr0.5Co1.5Fe0.5O5+δ–Nd0.1Ce0.9O2−δ composite cathode, are prepared, and their long-term performances are evaluated under a galvanostatic condition of 0.5 A·cm–2 at 650 °C. The cell voltages of the protected cells using the operation protocols to prevent performance degradation are stably maintained under the applied current density for more than 1200 h without any noticeable degradation, whereas the performance of the unprotected cell gradually decreased with time, and the decay ratio was 14.9% over 850 h. The significant performance decay of the unprotected cell is strongly associated with the cathode degradation phenomenon, which was caused by the water vapor continuously produced during the electrochemical reactions. Hence, the performance recovery of the PCFCs with the operation protocols is achieved by incrementally decreasing the cathode potential (close to a value of zero) to minimize the effect of high PH2O and PO2 during the PCFC operations.