Materials and Components for Low Temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cells – an Overview

This article summarizes the recent advancements made in the area of materials and components for low temperature solid oxide fuel cells (LT-SOFCs). LT-SOFC is a new trend in SOFCtechnology since high temperature SOFC puts very high demands on the materials and too expensive to match marketability. The current status of the electrolyte and electrode materials used in SOFCs, their specific features and the need for utilizing them for LT-SOFC are presented precisely in this review article. The section on electrolytes gives an overview of zirconia, lanthanum gallate and ceria based materials. Also, this review article explains the application of different anode, cathode and interconnect materials used for SOFC systems. SOFC can result in better performance with the application of liquid fuels such methanol and ethanol. As a whole, this review article discusses the novel materials suitable for operation of SOFC systems especially for low temperature operation

On the Suitability of La0.60Sr0.40Co0.20Fe0.80O3 Cathode for the Intermediate Temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (ITSOFC)

Solid oxide fuel cell can convert fuels rich in H-2 into electrical energy directly without pollution by electrochemical reaction with oxygen. The efficiency of energy conversion and durability of performance mainly depend on the electrocatalytic activity of the cathode and its thermo-chemical compatibility with the oxide ion conducting solid electrolyte. The global experience gained all these years in the SOFC development has prompted for a change from the state of the art functional cathode material, La1-xSrMnO3 (LSM) to a new material which is an electrocatalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction in the intermediate temperature range (873-1073 K). In this work, La(0.60)Sr(0.40)Co(0.2)fe(0.80)O(3), (LSCF), a mixed conducting stable perovskite oxide prepared by glycine nitrate combustion route is systematically characterised. Both circular and rectangular pellets were fabricated by uniaxial compression followed by annealing at different temperatures. The functional properties such as porosity, percentage thermal shrinkage in volume and percentage densification of the sintered pellets are compiled. It is found that La0.60Sr0.40Co0.20Fe0.80O3 exhibited high electrical conductivity (350 Scm(-1)) at ITSOFC operating temperature (1073 K). The thermo-chemical compatibility of this cathode material with alternate oxide ion conducting solid electrolytes namely, La0.9Sr0.1Ga0.8Mg0.2O3, Ce0.90Gd0.10O2, and Ce0.80Sm0.20O2 ( LSGM, CDC and SDC respectively) is also brought out. A brief discussion is made on its suitability for application as electrocatalytic cathode under ITSOFC operating conditions

Investigation on the effect of organic dye molecules on capacitive deionization of sodium sulfate salt solution using activated carbon cloth electrodes

Capacitive deionization (CDI) is an emerging electrochemical desalination technique for the energyefficient removal of dissolved ions from aqueous solution. This is a first research attempt which describes the influence of dye molecules on capacitive deionization of salt solution. In this regard, a CDI flow cell has been fabricated and tested in order to scrutinize the electrosorptive removal of three different dye molecules such as amido black 10B (AB) (acidic dye), eosin yellow (EY) (neutral dye) and methyl violet (MV) (basic dye) from synthetic aqueous solutions. The electrosorption capacitance was analyzed by cyclic voltammetry cell and CDI flow cell using activated carbon cloth (ACC) electrodes with 1 cm2 and 24 cm2 surface areas respectively. The capacitance values of 106 and 99 F/g correspondingly were obtained for a steady-state CV and CDI flow cell with 50mM Na2SO4 electrolyte solution. In addition to this, the dye removal efficiency was also examined by a CDI flow cell for the solution containing 10 ppm of dye and 500 ppm of Na2SO4. The experimental results substantiate that EY exhibits strong adsorption during charging and strong desorption during discharge cycle when compared with other two dye molecules (AB & MV). Conclusively, electrosorption of dye molecules at the carbon cloth electrodes surface was found in the following order: EY > AB > MV