Solid oxide fuel cells using Sm0.075Nd0.075Ce0.85O2−δ electrolyte coupled with an electron-blocking interlayer

Abstract We applied Ba-containing anode (Ni-BaZr0.1Ce0.7Y0.2O3-δ (NiO-BZCY)) to the Nd doped Sm0.15Ce0.85O2−δ(SNDC) electrolyte layer, aiming to solve the electron-leakage problem for CeO2-based electrolyte as well as to use the high conductivity of SNDC and the good interfacial oxygen incorporation. The NiO-BZCY anode not only acts as a catalysis for anode reactions but also offers barium source to form an electron-blocking layer which contains Ba for single cells based on SNDC electrolyte. The high conductivity of SNDC allows a reduction of electrolyte resistance and also provides a better interfacial oxygen-ion incorporation ability compared with the traditional Sm-doped CeO2 (SDC), facilitating the interfacial reactions. As a result, the open circuit voltage and the maximum power density of the cell using SNDC electrolyte exhibits are 1.03 V and 1024 mW/cm2 at 650 °C, which is much higher than that for traditional SDC-based cell even using the same barium-diffusion strategy, which is only 610 mW/cm2 at 650 °C.