Proton-conducting electrolytes for solid oxide fuel cell applications

Abstract

The necessity for reducing the operating temperatures of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) below 800 °C is widely proposed in the last years. To this aim, proton-conducting oxides have gained widespread interest as the electrolyte materials, acting as an alternative to oxygen ion conductors. High-temperature proton conductors, owing to their lower activation energy for proton conduction, can achieve high conductivity at relatively low temperatures compared to their oxygen ion-conducting counterparts. In this chapter, the recent advances in the field of solid oxide proton-conducting materials that belong to the class of perovskite-based materials (such as doped BaCeO3, BaZrO3, BaCeO3–BaZrO3 SrCeO3, and LaScO3) and to other classes of materials (such as doped Ba2In2O5, CeO2, and LaNbO4) are presented and analyzed. © 2017, CISM International Centre for Mechanical Sciences.