Novel materials for solid oxide fuel cell technologies: A literature review

Abstract

This study aims to review novel materials for solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) applications covered in literature. Thence, it was found that current SOFC operating conditions lead to issues, such as carbon surface deposition, sulfur poisoning and quick component degradation at high temperatures, which make it unsuitable for a few applications. Therefore, many researches are focused on cell performance enhancement through replacing the materials being used in order to improve properties and/or reduce operating temperatures. Most modifications in the anode aim to avoid some issues concerning conventionally used Ni-based materials, such as carbon deposition and sulfur poisoning, besides enhancing catalytic activity, once this component is directly exposed to the fuel. It was also found literature about the cathode with the aim of developing a material with enhanced properties in a wider temperature range, which has been compared to the currently used one: LSM perovskite (La1-xSrxMnO3). Novel electrolyte materials can have ionic or protonic conductivity, thus performance degradation must be avoided at several operating conditions. In order to enhance its electrochemical performance, different materials for electrodes (cathode and anode) and electrolytes have been assessed herein.