Fabrication of Y-doped barium cerium zirconate thin films by electrostatic spray deposition technique for protonic ceramic fuel cell application

Abstract This study aims to fabricate BaCe 0.4 Zr 0.4 Y 0.2 O 3− δ (BCZY) thin film by electrostatic spray deposition (ESD) technique. Effects of ESD parameters, i.e. type of precursor, substrate temperature, applied voltage, nozzle-to-substrate distance and flow rate, were systematically studied and optimized for acquiring dense and crack-free as-deposited thin films. The half-cells of protonic ceramic fuel cell (PCFC) were subsequently fabricated by electro-depositing and co-sintering BCZY thin film electrolytes on the 60 wt% NiO–40 wt% BCZY anode substrates. Since dense BCZY films could not be attained on bare NiO–BCZY anode substrates, the anode functional layers (AFLs) with lower mass fractions of NiO:BCZY at 10:90, 30:70 and 50:50 was co-pressed on top of NiO–BCZY anode substrates. After co-sintering at 1500 °C for 10 h in air, the increasing BCZY film density was observed in the following order: AFL50:50