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. 2021 Jan 27;13(3):4117-4125.
doi: 10.1021/acsami.0c15368. Epub 2021 Jan 11.

Route to High-Performance Micro-solid Oxide Fuel Cells on Metallic Substrates

Matthew P Wells  1 , Adam J Lovett  1 , Thomas Chalklen  1 , Federico Baiutti  2 , Albert Tarancón  2   3 , Xuejing Wang  4 , Jie Ding  4 , Haiyan Wang  4 , Sohini Kar-Narayan  1 , Matias Acosta  1 , Judith L MacManus-Driscoll  1
Affiliations

Route to High-Performance Micro-solid Oxide Fuel Cells on Metallic Substrates

Matthew P Wells et al. ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. .

Abstract

Micro-solid oxide fuel cells based on thin films have strong potential for use in portable power devices. However, devices based on silicon substrates typically involve thin-film metallic electrodes which are unstable at high temperatures. Devices based on bulk metal substrates overcome these limitations, though performance is hindered by the challenge of growing state-of-the-art epitaxial materials on metals. Here, we demonstrate for the first time the growth of epitaxial cathode materials on metal substrates (stainless steel) commercially supplied with epitaxial electrolyte layers (1.5 μm (Y2O3)0.15(ZrO2)0.85 (YSZ) + 50 nm CeO2). We create epitaxial mesoporous cathodes of (La0.60Sr0.40)0.95Co0.20Fe0.80O3 (LSCF) on the substrate by growing LSCF/MgO vertically aligned nanocomposite films by pulsed laser deposition, followed by selectively etching out the MgO. To enable valid comparison with the literature, the cathodes are also grown on single-crystal substrates, confirming state-of-the-art performance with an area specific resistance of 100 Ω cm2 at 500 °C and activation energy down to 0.97 eV. The work marks an important step toward the commercialization of high-performance micro-solid oxide fuel cells for portable power applications.

Keywords: commercially viable; epitaxial thin film; high-performance; metallic substrate; solid oxide fuel cell.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing financial interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic of the proposed fabrication procedure for μSOFCs incorporating VAN films on stainless steel substrates.
Figure 2
Figure 2
(a,b) Top-down SEM images of films grown on single-crystal YSZ before and after etching. (c,d) HAADF images of films grown on LSAT before and after etching. (e) EDX scan profile film before etching. (f,g) EDX measurements of the LSCF/MgO film before etching of MgO. (h) TEM image of the film after etching of MgO. (i) KPFM image of the LSCF/MgO cathode grown on ABAD-buffered stainless steel. (j) TEM image of the film grown on ABAD-buffered stainless steel after etching of MgO.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Schematics of the etching process of step 4 showing the (a) sample with mask applied before etching and (b) sample after etching. (c) 100 μm holes etched using aerosol-printed polymer mask—electrolyte layer collapsed.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Electrical data of electrolyte and cathode layers. (a) Arrhenius plot of ionic conductivity of YSZ films deposited by ABAD on stainless steel; (b) ASR of the LSCF/MgO film before and after etching of MgO as compared to the literature results from Beckel et al., Plonczak et al., and Çelikbilek et al.
Figure 5
Figure 5
(a) LSCF/MgO VAN film and (b) strain relaxation after etching MgO.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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