Superionic Conductivity in Ceria-Based Heterostructure Composites for Low-Temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

• Main Authors: Yifei Zhang, Jingjing Liu, Manish Singh, Enyi Hu, Zheng Jiang, Rizwan Raza, Faze Wang, Jun Wang, Fan Yang, Bin Zhu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SpringerOpen 2020-08-01
• Series: Nano-Micro Letters
• Subjects: Ceria-based heterostructure composite; Ceria–semiconductor; Energy band; Built-in field; Solid oxide fuel cell
• Online Access: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40820-020-00518-x

Abstract Ceria-based heterostructure composite (CHC) has become a new stream to develop advanced low-temperature (300–600 °C) solid oxide fuel cells (LTSOFCs) with excellent power outputs at 1000 mW cm−2 level. The state-of-the-art ceria–carbonate or ceria–semiconductor heterostructure composites have made the CHC systems significantly contribute to both fundamental and applied science researches of LTSOFCs; however, a deep scientific understanding to achieve excellent fuel cell performance and high superionic conduction is still missing, which may hinder its wide application and commercialization. This review aims to establish a new fundamental strategy for superionic conduction of the CHC materials and relevant LTSOFCs. This involves energy band and built-in-field assisting superionic conduction, highlighting coupling effect among the ionic transfer, band structure and alignment impact. Furthermore, theories of ceria–carbonate, e.g., space charge and multi-ion conduction, as well as new scientific understanding are discussed and presented for functional CHC materials.