Performance of fuel cells based on thin proton conducting oxide electrolyte and hydrogen-permeable metal film anode

This work aims to construct the hydrogen–air fuel cells, which operate at intermediate temperature. In order to reduce the operation temperature, the fuel cells are constructed using a thin proton conducting BaCe0.9Y0.1O2.95 electrolyte. The thin films of BaCe0.9Y0.1O2.95 electrolyte are prepared by the multiple slurry coating on a hydrogen-permeable membrane used as the anode of fuel cell. In this work, we examine at first the applicability of the hydrogen-permeable metal membrane for the anode of the fuel cell. Then, we evaluate the performance of the fuel cells consisting of the thin electrolyte supported by the metal membrane anode. It is recognized that the hydrogen-permeable metal membrane anode works well similar to the porous Ni anode. The voltage loss for the fuel cell with the hydrogen-permeable Pd membrane anode is lower than the fuel cell with the porous Ni anode. The fuel cells with the BaCe0.9Y0.1O2.95 electrolyte of 45 μm thickness and the Pd membrane anode of 25 μm thickness operate stably giving an open circuit voltage of 1.0 V at 640 °C and the power density of 50 mW/cm2 is derived.