One-step synthesized Co1.5Mn1.5O4-Ce0.8Sm0.2O1.9 composite cathode material for intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cells

A Co1.5Mn1.5O4-Ce0.8Sm0.2O1.9 (CMO-SDC) composite material has been prepared by the one-step hydro thermal synthesis method. The phase structure and morphology of the polycrystalline powders have been characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The results show the coexistence of the spinel and the fluorite-type structure which is uniformly distributed throughout the prepared samples. The fluorite phase SDC is well compatible with the spinel phase CMO. This proposed CMO-SDC composite cathode is successfully assembled with a traditional yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) electrolyte to fabricate intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cells (IT-SOFCs) with the structure Ni-YSZ vertical bar YSZ vertical bar CMO-SDC. The CMO-SDC (50:50 wt%) cell with the YSZ film of similar to 60 pm in thickness achieve power densities of 932 and 646 mW cm(-2) at 800 and 750 degrees C, respectively, in humidified H-2 (3 vol% H2O), demonstrating its promising application in IT-SOFCs. The high performance is attributed to the intimate contacts between CMO and SDC nanoparticles in the three-phase boundaries in the cathode.