A novel high performance composite anode with in situ growth of Fe-Ni alloy nanoparticles for intermediate solid oxide fuel cells

Abstract A redox reversible composite anode with Fe-Ni alloy nanoparticles in situ growth on SrLaFeO 4 -type and LaFeO 3 -type oxide substrates has been prepared for intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cell (IT-SOFC) by reducing perovskite precursor La 0.4 Sr 0.6 Fe 0.75 Ni 0.1 Nb 0.15 O 3-δ (LSFNNb) in wet H 2 at 900 °C for 1 h. The anode has shown an excellent electrochemical catalytic activity for oxidation of hydrogen with much smaller E a (25.1 ∼ 68.9 kJ mol −1 ) than the value (>160 kJ mol −1 ) at Ni-YSZ anode. A scandium stabilized zirconia (ScSZ) electrolyte supported SOFC with the anode achieves maximum power densities of 0.71, 0.52, 0.35, and 0.21 W cm −2 at 800, 750, 700 and 650 °C, respectively in wet H 2 (3% H 2 O), and the corresponding R p of 0.16, 0.21, 0.35, and 0.60 Ω cm 2 under OCV. Moreover, the single cell shows stable power output during ∼105 h operation at 800 °C under 0.7 V in wet H 2 after a initial degradation, indicating that R-LSFNNb is an excellent candidate as anode of IT-SOFC.