Characteristics of Slurry-Coated Nickel Zirconia Cermet Anodes for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

Polarization characteristics were studied in nickel and yttria stabilized zirconia cermet (Ni-YSZ cermet) electrodes in order to search for an adequate fabrication condition of a planar solid oxide fuel cell. Several e ectrodes were prepared by the slurry coating method, and dc and ac polarization behaviors were investigated at1273 K in H2-H20 atmosphere. An ex-perimental equation was derived to describe a typical dc polarization curve ofa Ni-YSZ cermet electrode. Effects of fabri-cation temperature, nickel content, and material powder were investigated in terms of deviation from this equation. Anodic overvoltage with a carefully prepared electrode was decreased to about.O.12V at1 A/cm 2. Recently, solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) have attracted much attention, and various cell stacking methods have been proposed by several groups (1-5). When compared with a tubular cell, a planar cell has the advantage that the current path length of a unit cell can be designed to be shorter, and then higher cell performance an be expected. In addition, planar cells can be fabricated by cheap wet processes such as tape casting methods