Abstract
This paper deals with the development of a highly dense and stable electrolyte on the base of nanoionics oxide interface theory. This gives a comparative study of two-phase nanocomposite electrolytes that are developed for low temperature solid oxide fuel cells (LT-SOFCs). These nanocomposites are synthesised with different oxides, which are coated on the doped ceria that showed high oxide ion mobility for LT-SOFCs. These novel two-phase nanocomposite oxide ionic conductors (MCe0.8Sm0.2O2-MO2, where M = Zn2+/Ba2+/La3+/Zr2+/Al3+) were synthesised by a co-precipitation method. The interface study between these two phases was analysed by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), while ionic conductivities were measured with DC conductivity (four probe method). The nanocomposite electrolytes exhibited higher conductivities with the increase of concentration of coated oxides but decreased at a certain level. The structural or morphological properties of the nanocomposite electrolytes were examined by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The thermal stability was investigated using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The maximum performance of 590 mW/cm2 at 550 °C was obtained for the Zn@SDC based cell, and the rest of the coated samples Ba@SDC, La@SDC, Zr@SDC and Al@SDC based cells showed values of 550 mW/cm2, 540 mW/cm2, 450 mW/cm2, 340 mW/cm2, respectively, with hydrogen as a fuel. Therefore, the coated-SDC based nanocomposite materials are a good approach for lowering the operating temperature to achieve the challenges of the solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC). These two-phase nanocomposite electrolytes satisfy the all requirements which one electrolyte should have, like high ionic conduction, thermodynamic stability and negligible electronic conduction.