Perovskite Al-SrTiO3 semiconductor electrolyte with superionic conduction in ceramic fuel cells

M. A.K.Yousaf Shah, Yuzheng Lu*, Naveed Mushtaq, Muhammad Yousaf, Sajid Rauf, Muhammad Imran Asghar, Peter D. Lund, Bin Zhu

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

34 Citations (Scopus)
117 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Perovskite oxide doping may modulate the energy bandgap strongly affecting the oxygen reduction activity and electrical properties with high promise for use as a low-temperature solid oxide fuel cell (LT-SOFC) electrolyte. Here, we show that a small amount of Al-doping into SrTiO3−δ may tune the energy band structure of SrTiO3−δ, triggering the electrochemical mechanism and fuel cell performance. The synthesized SrTiO3−δ and Al-SrTiO3−δ electrolytes are sandwiched between two symmetrical electrodes (Ni foam pasted NCAL). Ni-NCAL/SrTiO3−δ/NCAL-Ni and Ni-NCAL/Al-SrTiO3−δ/NCAL-Ni structures delivered a maximum power density of 0.52 W and 0.692 W and high ionic conductivity of 0.11 S cm−1 and 0.153 S cm−1, respectively, under H2/Air atmosphere at low operational temperature of 520 °C. Highways of ion transport along the surface and grain boundary (interface) are identified as the main reason for good oxygen ion conduction. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), UV visible (UV), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were performed to investigate the structural, electrochemical, morphological, surface and interfacial properties of Al-SrTiO3−δ. The obtained results suggest that a certain amount of Al (20%) doping into SrTiO3 (SrTi0.8Al0.2O3−δ) improves the fuel cell performance and is a promising electrolyte candidate for LT-SOFC.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3794-3805
JournalSustainable Energy and Fuels
Volume6
Issue number16
Early online date2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 11 Aug 2022
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

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  • Leading-edge next generation fuel cell devices

    Asghar, I. (Principal investigator), Bilbey, B. (Project Member), Jouttijärvi, S. (Project Member) & Zarabi Golkhatmi, S. (Project Member)

    01/09/201931/08/2022

    Project: Academy of Finland: Other research funding

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