Effect of grinding time of synthesized gadolinium doped ceria (GDC(10)) powders on the performance of solid oxide fuel cell

Ceria-based materials are prospective electrolytes for low and intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cells. In the present work, fully dense CeO2 ceramics doped with 10 mol% gadolinium (Gd0.1Ce0.9O1.95) were prepared with a sol-gel method and commercially purchased GDC(10) electrolyte powders were processed. Particle sizes of synthesized electrolyte powders were minimized by ball-milling method. Grinding of the samples were performed in different times intervals (12 h, 15 h, 18 h, 20 h, 25 h, 30 h, 35 h, 40 h and 45 h). Then, these powders were prepared to obtain of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). Performances of these cells having an active area of 1 cm(2) were tested using a fuel cell test station that measured in different temperatures (650 and 700 degrees C). In the present study, gadolinium doped ceria (GDC(10)) synthesiszed powders were investigated by using XRD and SEM images. Performance values of synthesized GDC(10)'s in different temperature were compared to by commercial GDC(10). Commercial GDC(10)'s performance at 650 degrees C were tested, and maximum current density of 0.413 W/cm(2) and maximum current density of 0.949 A/cm(2) were obtained. Commercial GDC(10) at 650 degrees C has better result. However, synthesized GDC(10)'s performance at 700 degrees C demonstrated better results than commercial GDC(10)'s. The performance tests of samples which are 20 h mill showed that they have the maximum power density of was obtained as 0.480 W/cm(2) and maximum current density of as 1.231 A/cm(2). Copyright (C) 2014, Karabuk University. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.