Electrochemical Performance of Anode-Supported Protonic Ceramic Fuel Cells with Various Composite Cathodes

The present study investigates protonic ceramic fuel cells (PCFCs) with composite cathodes consisting of an electronic conductive material and a protonic conductive material. PCFCs have been expected as a future high-efficiency and high-performance power generation device. Electronic conductive perovskite-type oxides such as (La,Sr)(Co,Fe)O3, (La,Sr)CoO3, and (La,Ba)CoO3 (LBC), which are commonly used for the cathode material of conventional solid oxide fuel cells with oxide ion-conducting electrolytes, are also used for that of PCFCs. However, these perovskite-type oxides have almost no protonic conductivity, resulting in poor catalytic activity for cathode electrochemical reaction in PCFCs. Thus, to enhance cathode performance, composite cathodes with a proton-conducting oxide BaZr0.1Ce0.7Y0.1Yb0.1O3–δ (BZCYYb) are applied to anode-supported PCFCs. Results show that the composite cathodes effectively enhance the cell performance, and the 50 wt% BZCYYb composite LBC-based cathode exhibits the highest performance among the evaluated composite cathodes.