Surface Restructuring of a Perovskite-type Air Electrode for Reversible Protonic Ceramic Electrochemical Cells

Overview

Journal Nat Commun

Specialty Biology

Date 2022 Apr 23

PMID 35459865

Authors

Kai Pei

Yucun Zhou

Kang Xu

Hua Zhang

Yong Ding

Bote Zhao

Wei Yuan

Kotaro Sasaki

YongMan Choi

Yu Chen

Meilin Liu

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Reversible protonic ceramic electrochemical cells (R-PCECs) are ideally suited for efficient energy storage and conversion; however, one of the limiting factors to high performance is the poor stability and insufficient electrocatalytic activity for oxygen reduction and evolution of the air electrode exposed to the high concentration of steam. Here we report our findings in enhancing the electrochemical activity and durability of a perovskite-type air electrode, BaCoFeNbO (BCFN), via a water-promoted surface restructuring process. Under properly-controlled operating conditions, the BCFN electrode is naturally restructured to an Nb-rich BCFN electrode covered with Nb-deficient BCFN nanoparticles. When used as the air electrode for a fuel-electrode-supported R-PCEC, good performances are demonstrated at 650 °C, achieving a peak power density of 1.70 W cm in the fuel cell mode and a current density of 2.8 A cm at 1.3 V in the electrolysis mode while maintaining reasonable Faradaic efficiencies and promising durability.

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