Evaluation and Upscaling of Impregnated La0.20Sr0.25Ca0.45TiO3 Fuel Electrodes for Solid Oxide Electrolysis Cells Under H2O, CO2 and Co-Electrolysis Conditions

Recent research into Rh and Ce 0.80 Gd 0.20 O 1.90 -impregnated La 0.20 Sr 0.25 Ca 0.45 TiO 3 fuel electrodes for solid oxide fuel cells has demonstrated the high-stability of these material sets to a variety of harsh operating conditions at small scales (button cells with 1 cm 2 active area), as well as full commercial scales (100 cm 2 cells) in short stacks (5 cells) and full micro-combined heat and power systems (60 cells). In this work, the authors present a comprehensive evaluation of the ability of these novel titanate-based materials to function as fuel electrodes in solid oxide electrolysis cells (SOECs). Short-term and durability testing of button cell scale SOECs, under CO 2 and steam electrolysis conditions, highlighted the limited stability of lanthanum strontium manganite-based air electrodes with lanthanum strontium cobaltite ferrite-based air electrodes offering improved degradation. Upscaling of this optimized cell chemistry to a 16 cm 2 active area SOEC and testing under CO 2 , CO 2 /steam and steam electrolysis conditions demonstrated encouraging performance over a period of ~600 hours.