The Properties of Co- and Fe-Doped GDC for Low-Temperature Processing of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell by Electron-Beam Evaporation

Abstract

This study is transition metal oxides (FeO and CoO) were added to Gd-doped ceria (Gd0.1Ce0.9O1.95, GDC) powder for preparing the thin-film electrolyte used in the Ni-GDC anode-supported intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC). Recently much attention was aimed at successful powder preparation with high sinter activity and conductivity. However, one of the challenges in preparing the GDC electrolytes is the densification issue. It is difficult to achieve the densification of GDC below 1600 degrees C. To overcome this drawback, attentions of the research on the densification of the GDC electrolyte is paid more on changing of the fabrication technology, the powder properties, and the sintering mechanism. Among them, Fe3+ and Co2+ showed the significant beneficial effect on the grain boundary conductivity. So, electrolyte powder made of Co- and Fe-doped GDC by solid-state reaction method. And thin-film electrolyte was fabricated on the presintered Ni-GDC cermet anode substrate by E-beam evaporating method and then co-sintered to form the electrolyte/anode bilayer. We realized crystal structure of Co and Fe doped Gd0.1Ce0.9O1.95 (GDC) electrolyte by X-ray diffraction (XRD). The morphology was measured by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) for the sintered samples were performed. The performance of the cells was evaluated over 500 similar to 800 degrees C using humidified hydrogen as fuel and air as oxidant.