Synthesis strategies for improving the performance of doped-BaZrO3 materials in solid oxide fuel cell applications

Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) offer an efficient energy conversion technology for alleviating current energy problems. High temperature proton-conducting (HTPC) oxides are promising electrolytes for this technology, since their activation energy is lower than that of conventional oxygen-ion conductors, enabling the operating temperature reduction at 600 degrees C. Among HTPC oxides, doped BaZrO3 materials possess high chemical stability, needed for practical applications. Though, poor sinterability and the resulting large volume of highly resistive grain boundaries hindered their deployment for many years. Nonetheless, the recently demonstrated high proton conductivity of the bulk revived the attention on doped BaZrO3, stimulating research on solving the sintering issues. The proper selection of dopants and sintering aids was demonstrated to be successful for improving the BaZrO3 electrolyte sinterability. We here briefly review the synthesis strategies proposed for preparing BaZrO3-based nanostructured powders for electrolyte and electrodes, with the aim to improve the SOFC performance.