Promising Efficient Mixed Ionic Electronic Conductor (Miecs)For Conventional Sofc and Semi-Ionic Membrane Fuel Cell

Abstract

A novel composite material has been created for electrochemical conversion in solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) and semi-ionic membrane fuel cells (SIFCs).The developed composite material based on (NiCu)xCe1-xO (x = 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8 and 1) showed the unique properties of MIECs.Good electronic conductivity (1.480 S/cm), ionic conductivity (0.098 S/cm), and total conductivity (1.578 S/cm) were observed in the SOFC application of Ni0.4Cu0.4Ce0.2O. The comparison at 600 °C, composition Ni0.4Cu0.4Ce0.2O produced an open circuit voltage (OCV) 1.055 V and a fuel cell performance 535.67 mW/cm2 for SOFC, while composition Ni0.2Cu0.2Ce0.6O produced a fuel cell performance 475.06 mW/cm2 for SIFC.The comparative study showed that total conductivity, fuel cell performance and polarization resistance of SOFC exhibited better results than SIFC. By comparison material composition Ni0.2Cu0.2Ce0.6O electrode showed good candidacy for SIFC over conventional SOFC particularly fuel cell application due to overall lower polarization resistance Rp and fast charge kinetics.

Keywords: SOFC, SIFC, ionic conductivity, Cerium oxide, Energy generation