Fabrication of condense and thin YSZ electrolyte layer using novel thermal-assisted slurry spin coating method for IT-SOFC

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel thermal-assisted slurry spin coating method to fabricate dense YSZ electrolyte layers for IT-SOFCs, improving layer quality and cell performance.

Contribution

The study introduces a thermal-assisted spin coating technique that enhances electrolyte layer density and electrochemical performance in solid oxide fuel cells.

Findings

Higher power outputs with humidified hydrogen fuel.

Reduced interfacial and Ohmic resistances.

Improved YSZ layer density compared to traditional methods.

Abstract

A simple spin coating approach is introduced to fabricate Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia (YSZ) electrolyte layer on NiO-YSZ anode substrate for solid oxide fuel cell applications. Heating the substrate during the slurry spin coating process enhances the affected area through the layer and leads to optimize the compacting amount of coated electrolyte particles before sintering procedure. On top of this bilayer substrate, LCFN is deposited as an intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cell cathode, in order to have suitable output performances at intermediate temperature ranges. Applying humidified hydrogen as fuel and ambient air as the oxidant, cell performance characterizations exhibit higher power outputs for prepared sample. Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy measurements on single cells also demonstrate that both interfacial and Ohmic resistances are reduced. These results along with Scanning Electron Microscope micrographs reveal that the density of the YSZ layer which is coated by the suggested approach is better than the usual slurry spin coating method.