Co-synthesis of LSCFN-GDC electrode for symmetric solid oxide fuel cell running on propane

In this study one step co-synthesis method is investigated to prepare La0.4Sr0.6Co0.2Fe0.7Nb0.1O3-δ-Gd0.1Ce0.9O2-δ (LSCFN-GDC), with the purpose of developing a facile and optimized electrode fabrication procedure for Zirconia electrolyte based symmetric solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC). The co-synthesized LSCFN-GDC shows distinct co-existence of perovskite and fluorite structure with high chemical compatibility and remarkable optimized electrode microstructure compared with the physical mixing one. The particle size of both LSCFN and GDC are obviously decreased and the electrode porosity is increased using the co-synthesized method. As a result, the polarization resistance of LSCFN-GDC electrode is dramatically decreased to 0.022 Ω·cm2, compared with 0.051 Ω cm2 of the physical mixing one, at 850 °C in air. Symmetrical single cells with a configuration of LSCFN-GDC||GDC|YSZ|GDC||LSCFN-GDC are successfully fabricated and characterized under various fuels of H2, CH4 and C3H8. Results show that, the maximum power densities are discovered to be 348 mW·cm−2 and 324 mW·cm−2 at 850 °C under room temperature humidified hydrogen and propane, respectively, yielding a tremendous cell performance improvement. Moreover, the long-term operation of such symmetrical single cell is demonstrated to be stable for more than 100 h under both hydrogen and propane.