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Fuel cells: Hydrogen induced insulation

Nature Energy volume 1, Article number: 16078 (2016) Cite this article

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Coupling high ionic and low electronic conductivity in the electrolyte of low-temperature solid-oxide fuel cells remains a challenge. Now, the electronic conductivity of a perovskite electrolyte, which has high proton conductivity, is shown to be heavily suppressed when exposed to hydrogen, leading to high fuel cell performance.

Fuel cells are capable of efficiently and cleanly converting chemical energy to electrical energy. Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) are one class of such devices in which the electrolyte — the layer that separates the anode from the cathode — is a solid state metal oxide. Typically, SOFCs operating at intermediate temperatures (500–750 °C) make use of electrolytes that allow oxygen ions to move between the electrodes, but there are efforts to develop SOFCs that operate at lower temperatures (LTs; 300–500 °C) by exploiting proton-conducting electrolytes to provide the necessary ionic conductivity. Lowering the operating temperature of SOFCs provides a promising solution to transform energy conversion by allowing the use of lower-cost materials for balance-of-plant components (auxiliary equipment required in addition to the fuel cell stack) and by reducing heat exchanger size and thermal insulation requirements1. Proton conductors are particularly suitable electrolytes for LT-SOFCs because they have lower energetic barriers for proton diffusion and higher ionic conductivity than oxygen-ion conductors. Yet finding materials that also have low electronic conductivity — which would prevent short-circuiting — remains a challenge. Writing in Nature, You Zhou, Shriram Ramanathan and colleagues across the USA now report an electron doping strategy to yield high-performance metal oxide perovskite proton conductors for LT-SOFCs2. They achieve ionic conductivity comparable to the best performing electrolytes at similar temperatures, while minimizing deleterious electronic leakage due to a fuel-induced metal–insulator transition.

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Figure 1: Electronically insulated proton-conducting perovskite for use as the electrolyte in a SOFC.

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  1. Wei Zhou and Zongping Shao are at the Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials (SICAM), State Key Laboratory of Materials-Oriented Chemical Engineering, College of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, No. 5 Xin Mofan Road, Nanjing 210009, China.,

    Wei Zhou & Zongping Shao

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  1. Wei Zhou
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  2. Zongping Shao
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Correspondence to Zongping Shao.

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Zhou, W., Shao, Z. Fuel cells: Hydrogen induced insulation. Nat Energy 1, 16078 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nenergy.2016.78

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