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Layered oxygen-deficient double perovskite as an efficient and stable anode for direct hydrocarbon solid oxide fuel cells

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Abstract

Different layered perovskite-related oxides are known to exhibit important electronic, magnetic and electrochemical properties. Owing to their excellent mixed-ionic and electronic conductivity and fast oxygen kinetics, cation layered double perovskite oxides such as PrBaCo2O5 in particular have exhibited excellent properties as solid oxide fuel cell oxygen electrodes1. Here, we show for the first time that related layered materials can be used as high-performance fuel electrodes. Good redox stability with tolerance to coking and sulphur contamination from hydrocarbon fuels is demonstrated for the layered perovskite anode PrBaMn2O5+δ (PBMO). The PBMO anode is fabricated by in situ annealing of Pr0.5Ba0.5MnO3−δ in fuel conditions and actual fuel cell operation is demonstrated. At 800 °C, layered PBMO shows high electrical conductivity of 8.16 S cm−1 in 5% H2 and demonstrates peak power densities of 1.7 and 1.3 W cm−2 at 850 °C using humidified hydrogen and propane fuels, respectively.

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Figure 1: Principle of the approach to prepare A-site layered perovskite PrBaMn2O5+δ.
Figure 2: TEM analysis.
Figure 3: Electrical and redox properties of layered PrBaMn2O5+δ.
Figure 4: Electrochemical properties of layered PrBaMn2O5+δ anode with PrBaMn2O5+δ and Co–Fe catalyst in fuel cells.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the New & Renewable Energy of the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP) (20113020030060) grant by the Korea government Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, the (2013R1A2A2A04015706) through the National Research Foundation of Korea, funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning and the Basic Science Research Program (2013R1A2A2A01007170 and 2010-0021214) through the National Research Foundation of Korea funded by Ministry of Education. We thank The Royal Society for a Wolfson Merit Award (JI) and EPSRC for a research grant (EP/I022570/1).

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Contributions

S.S., S.C. and A.J. contributed to fabricating the samples and conducted data analysis of all kinds of electrochemical experiment, SEM, coulometric titration, X-ray diffraction and gas chromatography. Y.W.J. fabricated samples and discussed electrochemical data. T.H.S. carried out the high-temperature X-ray diffraction and dilatometer analyses. H.Y.J. collected and analysed the TEM data. J.S., J.T.S.I. and G.K. conceived and designed the project. All authors contributed to writing the paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to John T. S. Irvine or Guntae Kim.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Sengodan, S., Choi, S., Jun, A. et al. Layered oxygen-deficient double perovskite as an efficient and stable anode for direct hydrocarbon solid oxide fuel cells. Nature Mater 14, 205–209 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4166

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