Electrochemical performances of NANOCOFC in MCFC environments

The electrochemical performances of fuel cells using nano-ceria-salt composites electrolyte (NANOCOFC) have been investigated at different temperatures in molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) environment. The maximum output power density increased with the temperature, and reached 140 mW/cm2 at 650 °C. After operating for 200 h, the open circuit voltage (OCV) can keep the same value and the output power density only deceased 0.08%. It demonstrated that the NANOCOFC possessed the perfect stability of electrochemical performance in the MCFC environment. However, it was found that the output power density of the fuel cell in MCFC environment was much lower than that of fuel cell in SOFC environment. It was implied that the carbonate transfer would hinder the conduction of both proton and oxygen ion, which result in the poor output power density of fuel cells.