Demonstration of Novel Oxide Materials As Sulfur-Tolerant SOFC Anodes

Functional Coating Technology LLC, working with Northwestern University, has recently developed new anodes that are either all-oxide materials or oxides that contains a small amount of a nano electro-catalyst metal, e.g., Ru, formed by a novel self-assembly process. Since these anodes work well without Ni, they have potential for substantially improved sulfur tolerance. Prior works have shown that perovskite oxide anodes similar to ours have excellent sulfur tolerance, in some cases working with >10%H2S in the fuel! However, these anodes have typically not shown electrochemical performance consistent with higher power density (~1W/cm2), arguably the key requirement for implementing SOFCs in high power-to-weight ratio, airborne applications. Our new anodes provide this high performance as well as very good sulfur tolerance. The objective of this Phase I project is to explore the feasibility of new materials as high-performance sulfur-tolerant anodes. A main part will be to screen the current anode compositions and several new hybrid compositions in electrolyte-supported cells, using impedance spectroscopy to identify the anode contribution to the performance. The one or two best compositions would be chosen for more detailed testing in follow-up Phase II, that will feature implementation of the new anodes in thin-electrolyte cells for high power densities.