• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
• /
• v.57 no.4
• /
• pp.525-530
• /
• 2019

The performance and stability of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) depend on the microstructure of the electrode and electrolyte. In anode, porosity and pore distribution affect the active site and fuel gas transfer. In an electrolyte, density and thickness determine the ohmic resistance. To optimizing these conditions, using costly method cannot be a suitable research plan for aiming at commercialization. To solve these drawbacks, we made high performance unit cells with low cost and highly efficient ceramic processes. We selected the NiO-YSZ cermet that is a commercial anode material and used facile methods like die pressing and dip coating process. The porosity of anode was controlled by the amount of carbon black (CB) pore former from 10 wt% to 20 wt% and final sintering temperature from $1350^{\circ}C$ to $1450^{\circ}C$. To achieve a dense thin film electrolyte, the thickness and microstructure of electrolyte were controlled by changing the YSZ loading (vol%) of the slurry from 1 vol% to 5 vol. From results, we achieved the 40% porosity that is well known as an optimum value in Ni-YSZ anode, by adding 15wt% of CB and sintering at $1350^{\circ}C$. YSZ electrolyte thickness was controllable from $2{\mu}m$ to $28{\mu}m$ and dense microstructure is formed at 3vol% of YSZ loading via dip coating process. Finally, a unit cell composed of Ni-YSZ anode with 40% porosity, YSZ electrolyte with a $22{\mu}m$ thickness and LSM-YSZ cathode had a maximum power density of $1.426Wcm^{-2}$ at $800^{\circ}C$.

• Electrical & Electronic Materials
• /
• v.10 no.6
• /
• pp.528-532
• /
• 1997

The research and development for the solid oxide fuel cell have been promoted rapidly and extensively in recent years, because of their high efficiency and future potential. Therefore this paper describes the manufacturing method and characteristics of anode electrode for SOFC, by the way, Ni-YSZ materials are used as anode of SOFC widely. So in this experiments, we investigated the optimum content of Ni, by testing expansion coefficient, impedance characteristics, overvoltage. As a result, the performance of Ni-YSZ anode(40vol%) was better excellent than the others.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
• /
• v.17 no.1
• /
• pp.62-68
• /
• 2006

High temperature electrolysis is a promising technology to produce massively hydrogen using renewable and nuclear energy. Solid oxide fuel cell materials are candidates as the components of steam electrolysers. However, the polarization characteristics of the typical electrode materials during the electrolysis have not been intensively investigated. In this study, NiO electrode was deposited on YSZ electrolyte by spin coat process and firing at $1300^{\circ}C$. Pt electrode was applied on the other side of the electrolyte to compare the polarization characteristics with those by NiO during electrolysis. The $H_2$ evolution rate was also monitored by measuring the electromotive force of Lambda probe and calculated by thermodynamic consideration. At low current density, Pt showed lower cathodic polarization and thus higher current efficiency than Ni, but the oxidation of Ni into NiO caused the increase of anodic resistance with increasing current density. High overpotential induced high power consumption to produce hydrogen by electrolysis.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
• /
• v.49 no.5
• /
• pp.404-411
• /
• 2012

The reliability of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) particularly depends on the high quality of solid oxide electrolytes. The application of thinner electrolytes and multi electrolyte layers requires a more reliable characterization method. Most of the investigations on thin film solid electrolytes have been made for the parallel transport along the interface, which is not however directly related to the fuel cell performance of those electrolytes. In this work an array of ion-blocking metallic Ti/Au microelectrodes with about a $160{\mu}m$ diameter was applied on top of an ultrathin ($1{\mu}m$) yttria-stabilized-zirconia/gadolinium-doped-ceria (YSZ/GDC) heterolayer solid electrolyte in a micro-SOFC prepared by PLD as well as an 8-${\mu}m$ thick YSZ layer by screen printing, to study the transport characteristics in the perpendicular direction relevant for fuel cell operation. While the capacitance variation in the electrode area supported the working principle of the measurement technique, other local variations could be related to the quality of the electrolyte layers and deposited electrode points. While the small electrode size and low temperature measurements increaseed the electrolyte resistances enough for the reliable estimation, the impedance spectra appeared to consist of only a large electrode polarization. Modulus representation distinguished two high frequency responses with resistance magnitude differing by orders of magnitude, which can be ascribed to the gadolinium-doped ceria buffer electrolyte layer with a 200 nm thickness and yttria-stabilized zirconia layer of about $1{\mu}m$. The major impedance response was attributed to the resistance due to electron hole conduction in GDC due to the ion-blocking top electrodes with activation energy of 0.7 eV. The respective conductivity values were obtained by model analysis using empirical Havriliak-Negami elements and by temperature adjustments with respect to the conductivity of the YSZ layers.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
• /
• v.16 no.6
• /
• pp.434-440
• /
• 2007

Two kinds of new NOx sensing mechanism was proposed and examined. One of those was potentiomtric sensor based on the measurement of decomposed oxygen from NO using YSZ porous diffusion barrier and Pd catalytic electrode. The sensor based on decomposed oxygen measurement responded to the range of 300 - 1000 ppm NO in $N_{2}$ environment and the sensitivities were coincident with theoretical values at 700 and $800^{\circ}C$ but the decomposition rate depended on gas flow rate. The other sensor was equilibrium potentiometric type using $Gd_{2}O_{3}$-nitrates solid solution as sensing material. The sensor using $Gd_{2}O_{3}$-nitrates solid solution was suitable for NOxxsensing at $700^{\circ}C$ in 5 % oxygen and the sensitivity was 19.3 mV/decade. However, long term stability of the sensing material at high temperature was not sufficient.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
• /
• v.29 no.2
• /
• pp.1-9
• /
• 2020

In recent days, fuel cell has received attention from the world as an alternative power source to hydrocarbon used in automobile engines. With the industrial advances of fuel cell, There have been a lot of researches actively conducted to find a way of generating hydrogen. Among many hydrogen production methods, Solid Oxide Electrolysis Cell(SOEC) is not only a basic way but also environment-friendly method to produce hydrogen gas. Solid Oxide Electrolysis Cell has lower electrical energy demands and high thermal efficiency since it is possible to operate under high temperature and high pressure conditions. For these reasons, experimental researches as well as studies on numerical modeling for Solid Oxide Electrolysis Cell have been under way. However, studies on numerical modeling are relatively less enough than experimental accomplishments and have limited performance prediction, which mostly is considered as a result from inadequate effects of electrochemical properties by temperature and pressure. In this study, various experimental studies of commercial Membrane Electrode Assembly (MEA) composed of Ni-YSZ (40wt%, Ni-60 wt% YSZ)/8-YSZ (TOSOH, TZ8Y)/LSM (La_0.9Sr_0.1MnO₃) was utilized for improving effectiveness of SOEC model. After numerically analyzing effects of electrochemical properties according to operating temperature, causing the largest deviation between experiments and simulation are that Charge Transfer Coefficient (CTC), exchange current density, diffusion coefficient, electrical conductivity in SOEC. Analyzing temperature effect on parameter used in overpotential model is conducted for modeling of SOEC. cross-validation method is adopted for application of various MEA and evaluating feasibility of model. As a result, the study confirm that the numerical model of SOEC based on structured process of effectiveness evaluation makes performance prediction better.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
• /
• v.44 no.10
• /
• pp.589-595
• /
• 2007

Physical properties of sputtered YSZ thin film electrolytes on anode thin film by spray pyrolisis has been investigated to realize the porous electrode and dense electrolyte multilayer structure for micro solid oxide fuel cells. It is shown that for better crystallinity and density, YSZ need to be deposited at an elevated temperature. However, if pure NiO anode was used for high temperature deposition, massive defects such as spalling and delamination were induced due to high thermal expansion mismatch. By changing anode to NiOCGO composite, defects were significantly reduced even at high deposition temperature. Further research on realization of full cells by processing hybridization and cell performance characterization will be performed in near future.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
• /
• v.22 no.5
• /
• pp.641-648
• /
• 2011

KEPRI (KEPCO Research Institute) designed and operated the lab-scale high temperature electrolysis (HTE) system for hydrogen production with $10{\times}10cm^2$ 5-cell stack at $750^{\circ}C$. The electrolysis cell consists of Ni-YSZ steam/hydrogen electrode, YSZ electrolyte and LSCF based perovskite as air side electrode. The active area of one cell is 92.16 $cm^2$. The hydrogen production system was operated for 2664 hours and the performance of electrolysis stack was measured by means of current variation with from 6 A to 28 A. The maximum hydrogen production rate and current efficiency was 47.33 NL/hr and 80.90% at 28 A, respectively. As the applied current increased, hydrogen production rate, current efficiency and the degradation rate of stack were increased respectively. From the result of stack performance, optimum operation current of this system was 24 A, considering current efficiencies and cell degradations.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
• /
• 2010.06a
• /
• pp.214-214
• /
• 2010

The 0.65Pb($Mg_{1/3}Nb_{2/3})O_3-0.35PbTiO_3$ (PMN-PT) thin films with $La_{0.5}Sr_{0.5}CoO_{3-\delta}$ (LSCO) bottom electrodes were grown on $CeO_2$/YSZ/Si(001), Pt/$TiO_2$/Si and $SrTiO_3$ (STO) substrates using conventional pulsed laser deposition (PLD) at a substrate temperature of $550^{\circ}C$. Since generally the crystallographic orientation of the bottom electrode induces the orientation of the films deposited on it, it allows us to observe the influence of the PMN-PT film orientation on the electrical properties. Phi scan done on PMN-PT/LSCO thin films shows epitaxial behavior of the films grown on sto substrates and $CeO_2$/YSZ buffered Si(001) substrates, and (110) texture on Pt/$TiO_2$/Si substrates. Polarization-electricfield (P-E) measurement shows good hysteresis behavior of PMN-PT films with remnant polarization of 18.2, 8.8, and $4.4{\mu}C/cm^2$ on $CeO_2$/YSZ/Si, Pt/TiO2/Si and STO substrates respectively.

• Journal of Powder Materials
• /
• v.8 no.3
• /
• pp.201-206
• /
• 2001

$>LaMnO_3$$(La, Sr)MO_3$, and $(La, Sr)MO_3/YSZ$ gel films were deposited by spin-coating technique on scandium-doped zirconia (YSZ) substrate using the precursor solution prepared from $La(O-i-C_3H_7)_3$, $Co(CH_3COO)_2$or $Mn(O-i-C_3H_7)_2$,2-methoxyethanol, and polyethylene glycol. By heat-treating the gel films, the electrochemical cells, $(La, Sr)MnO_3{\mid}ScSZ{\mid}Pt$ were fabricated. The effect of polyethylene glycol on the microstructure evolution of $$LaCoO_3and $LaMnO_3$thin films was investigated, and NOx decomposition characteristics of the electrochemical cells were investigated at $500^{\circ}C$ to $600^{\circ}C$. By applying a direct current to the $(La, Sr)MnO_3{\mid}ScSZ{\mid}Pt$ electrochemical cell, good NOx conversion rate could be obtained relatively at low current value even if excess oxygen is included in the reaction gas mixture.