Study of carbon dioxide electrolysis at electrode/electrolyte interface: Part II. Pt-YSZ cermet/YSZ interface

CO2 electrolysis to produce O2 has been investigated by means of solid oxide electrolysis (SOE) in preparation for future human exploration of Mars. In order to increase the cell efficiency, a new cermet electrode mixture of Pt and YSZ was studied. SOE cells constructed from the Pt-YSZ cermet electrodes have been tested in a temperature range from 1023 to 1123 K. Comparisons of CO2 electrolysis performances have been conducted between cells using Pt-YSZ cermet electrodes and Pt electrodes. Characteristics investigated include current–voltage performance, ohmic resistances and activation overpotentials. The results demonstrate that the current density is nearly tripled and the performance improvement made by Pt-YSZ cermet electrodes is more significant at low temperature. Both the ohmic resistance and activation overpotential at the anode decrease significantly for the Pt-YSZ cermet electrodes. It suggests that the contact resistance and the electrode delamination are greatly reduced. However, change to the Pt-YSZ cermet electrodes does not have a profound influence on the cathode.