Preparation of ceria coated copper by the heterogeneous precipitation method for current collecting components in solid oxide fuel cell

초록

Solid oxide fuel cells with Cu-ceria-YSZ anodes have been developed for the direct conversion of hydrocarbon fuels. Copper is also able to work as a current collector under wide range of hydrocarbon fuels without coaking. While Cu-cermets are very promising for application to direct hydrocarbon fuel cells, the low melting temperature of Cu metal limits the operation of SOFC based on Cu. During the operation of SOFC at high temperatures, Cu sintering may easily happen and degrade their electrical performances. This work focuses on the study of copper sintering with ceria-coated copper powders. A heterogeneous precipitation method was employed to prepare ceria-coated copper powders using Cu(O), Ce(NO3)3?H2O, CO(NH2)2 as a starting materials. The coated powders were characterized by XRD, ICP, SEM. The thermal stability of the ceria-coated copper and ceria-mixed powder in fuel atmosphere (H2) was compared by SEM. It was founded the ceria coating layer could effectively hinder the sintering process of the copper particles. The microstructures of the coated powders after aging in H2 indicated that the coated powders exhibited a smaller grain size of copper than mixed powders. The application of these results to improve the performances of the current collecting layer SOFC is discussed.