Praseodymium based double-perovskite cathode nanofibers for intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cells (IT-SOFC)

In this work, praseodymium based double perovskite oxide, PrBa0.5Sr0.5Co1.5Fe0.5O5+δ (PBSCF) cathode nanofibers were fabricated by electrospinning for intermediate-temperature solid oxide fuel cell (IT-SOFC). The three-dimensional nanofiber network cathode provides high porosity coupled with the large interfacial contact areas, leading to an improved oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) kinetics. The nanofiber cathode showed a polarization resistance of ∼0.025 Ω cm2 at 750 °C. The resulted low resistance is smaller than the commercial LSCF cathode showing polarization resistance of ∼0.041 Ω cm2 at 750 °C. The peak power densities of the PBSCF fibers are ∼2539, 1580 and 993 mW/cm2 at 750, 700, and 650 °C, respectively when compared to LSCF cathode performance of ∼1974, 1304 and 769 mW/cm2 at same temperature. Such promising performance of fiber cathode IT-SOFCs in this study was achieved via careful selection of the catalyst structure and composition, electrode structure for efficient ORR, and through process optimizations. The results obtained in this study illustrates that one-dimensional nanostructures obtained by adopting nanofibers could be an appropriate cathode material choice for intermediate-temperature SOFCs suitable for high power density applications such in automotive, stationary, APU and aviation fields.