Ceramic membrane fuel cells based on solid proton electrolytes

The development of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) has reached its new stage characterized with thin electrolytes on porous electrode support, and the most important fabrication techniques developed in which almost all are concerned with inorganic membranes, and so can be named as ceramic membrane fuel cells (CMFCs). CMFCs based on proton electrolytes (CMFC-H) may exhibit more advantages than CMFCs based on oxygen-ion electrolytes (CMFC-O) in many respects, such as energy efficiency and avoiding carbon deposit. Ammonia fuelled CMFC with proton-conducting BaCe0.8Gd0.2O2.9 (BCGO) electrolyte (50 μm in thickness) is reported in this works, which showed the open current voltage (OCV) values close to theoretical ones and rather high power density. And also, we have found that the well known super oxide ion conductor, La0.9Sr0.1Ga0.8Mg0.2O3−α (LSGM), is a pure proton conductor in H2 and mixed proton and oxide ion conductor in wet air, while it is a pure oxide ion conductor in oxygen or dry air. To demonstrate the CMFC-H concept to get high performance fuel cells the techniques for thin membranes, chemical vapor deposition (CVD), particularly novel CVD techniques, should be given more attention because of their many advantages.