Strong Metal–Support Interactions of Ni-CeO2 Effectively Improve the Performance of a Molten Hydroxide Direct Carbon Fuel Cell

A strong metal-support interaction (SMSI) type catalyst has been synthesized and applied to a molten hydroxide direct carbon fuel cell (MHDCFC) to enhance the reaction activity of the anode carbon fuel through the interaction between the metal Ni and the support CeO2. Two catalysts have been prepared by a direct precipitation method (denoted NiO@CeO2) and a hydrothermal method (denoted NiO-CeO2), which are reduced by H2 to obtain Ni@CeO2 and Ni-CeO2, respectively. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Raman, and temperature-programmed hydrogen reduction (H2-TPR) analysis results show that there are obvious oxygen vacancies and a Ni-O-Ce interface structure in NiO-CeO2 and Ni-CeO2, which is induced by the interaction between Ni and CeO2. The calculation results of current density and power density show that the performance of the MHDCFC is significantly improved in the presence of Ni-CeO2. The function fitting curves of the logarithm of the reaction rate constant (ln k) and the reciprocal of the temperature (1/T) show that the slope of the curve is decreased significantly after the addition of Ni-CeO2. In combination with density functional theory (DFT), the anode carbon reaction path is simulated in the MHDCFC, and the calculation results show that the reaction energy for the anodic carbon to generate carbon dioxide is decreased by 1.03 eV in the presence of Ni-CeO2.