With the current deteriorating state of our environment and an increasing demand on a limited supply of fossil fuels, finding technologies that utilize renewable resources efficiently while producing minimal pollution is of great importance. Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) have attracted considerable attention because of their ability to provide electricity from a variety of different fuels with efficiencies as great as 80%. Currently, SOFC anode materials do not support the direct use of complex hydrocarbon fuels, which can lead to eventual device failure brought upon by unwanted graphitic and metal sulfide formations. These limitations have spurred the investigation of new mixed ionic and electronic conducting (MIEC) anode materials that can be effective at blocking these detrimental formations. In these studies, different synthesis methods were utilized to create a single phase material of the MIEC materials Sr2Fe1.5Mo0.5O6-δ (SFMO). Specifically a solution and solid state synthesis were compared to observe effects on phase purity, particle size and electrochemical catalytic efficiency. In these experiments, the use of X-ray diffraction (XRD) was used to monitor the phase purity of our SFMO products, while SEM was be used to monitor particle size and effective catalytic surface area. Our research revealed that both synthesis methods were capable of producing a pure phase of SFMO from further calcination heating in a furnace. However the SFMO material created by the solution synthesis became pure at a lower calcination temperature of 1100°C while the solid state material required a higher temperature of 1250°C due primarily to high melting points of carbonate impurities. SEM revealed that the particles created by solution state had a size of 1.21±0.41 µm while the solid state material produced particles on the range of 5.37±2.07µm. To explore the electrochemical performance of these materials, conductivity measurements were first employed to explore the extent of electron conduction over the temperature range of 400-800°C. Both materials showed similar conductance to electron transport.The different SFMO materials were then integrated into working SOFC devices and explored with standard electroanalytical methods for performance. Although having the similar electron conduction, the increase in catalytic surface area for the SFMO material created by the solution synthesis proved to be beneficial in electrochemical performance.

Effects of solution and solid state synthesis routes on the material properties of Sr2Fe1.5Mo0.5O6-δ solid oxide fuel cell anodes

254th National Meeting (2017)

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