Suspension Plasma Spraying to Manufacture Electrodes for Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) and Solid Oxide Electrolysis Cell (SOEC)

SOFC technology is assumed to have significant potential in energy conversion although many obstacles still prevent its widespread use. Among these, the cost of scaling up existing manufacturing processes for mass production is of major concern. With thermal spray technology, SOFCs can be produced without implementing time consuming sintering steps required in wet ceramic processing. Suspensions Plasma Spraying is one of the promising solutions because it produces thin layer with finer and more adapted microstructures. In the present work, water or alcoholic suspensions of sub-micron YSZ/NiO for hydrogen electrode and La2NiO4 for oxygen electrode have been studied to achieve a good dispersion and stability. These optimized suspensions have been injected into the plasma spray system to produce porous coatings of 40 mu m thick onto ferritic porous substrates. The evolution of the morphology and crystalline structure of the electrodes have been investigated by SEM/EDS and XRD with the operating parameters.