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. 2025 Jun;21(22):e2503162.
doi: 10.1002/smll.202503162. Epub 2025 Apr 8.

Electrochemical Performance and Degradation Mechanisms of BaCe0.7Zr0.1Y0.2O3-δ/BaZr0.8Y0.2O3-δ Based Tubular Protonic Ceramic Electrolysis Cells and Stacks for Stable Hydrogen Production

Xiaofeng Ye  1   2 , Xiaoyun Miao  1   2 , Xingzhi Zhu  1   2 , Zhengfeng Wang  1 , Jianjun Wen  1 , Zhaoyin Wen  1   2
Affiliations

Electrochemical Performance and Degradation Mechanisms of BaCe0.7Zr0.1Y0.2O3-δ/BaZr0.8Y0.2O3-δ Based Tubular Protonic Ceramic Electrolysis Cells and Stacks for Stable Hydrogen Production

Xiaofeng Ye et al. Small. 2025 Jun.

Abstract

Protonic Ceramic Electrolysis Cells (PCECs) attract much attention for efficient green hydrogen production in recent years, however, their application is still limited due to the lack of stable and robust large area single cells. In this paper, small batch production of large area tubular PCEC single cells with 10-31 cm2 effective area is reported, and PCEC stacks are assembled and evaluated. The assembled 4-cell-stack in parallel based on BaZr0.8Y0.2O3-δ (BZY) electrolyte cells achieves 26 W and 257 mA cm-2 at 1.4 V, and it maintains hydrogen production for 15 200 h at 700 °C with a degradation rate of 1.4% 1000 h-1. Ni agglomeration and BaCO3 formation are found to be the main degradation mechanisms by post-mortem analysis. The added BaCe0.7Zr0.1Y0.2O3-δ (BCZY) electrolyte interlayer improves the electrochemical performance and the 15 cm2 single cell can get an electrolysis current density of 200 mAcm-2 at 1.3 V and 550 °C. The assembled 4-cell-stack in combined serial and parallel connections achieves 58 W at 650 °C. Several thermal cycles to room temperature of the single cell and stack are both achieved to show structural stability and reliability. All these results show excellent stability of BZY material and Ni-BCZY electrode supported tubular structure for PCEC applications.

Keywords: degradation; dual‐layer electrolyte; hydrogen production; protonic ceramic electrolysis cells; tubular.

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