Ultra-elevated power density and high energy efficiency of protonic ceramic fuel cells: Numerical and experimental results

The fabrication of high-performance protonic ceramic fuel cells (PCFCs) and the accurate evaluation of their energy efficiency remain challenging because of electron–hole leakage. By combining an established numerical method with experiments, we developed high-performance chemically stable Ce-free PCFCs with a BaZr0.8Yb0.2O3−δ electrolyte that perform comparably to first-tier PCFCs, which typically employ Ce-containing electrolytes. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to numerically reproduce experimental performance over a wide range of temperatures, electrolyte thicknesses, and current densities. Importantly, our study can accurately predict the ultra-elevated performance of cells under different conditions without the need for conducting additional experiments (e.g., > 3.0 W·cm−2 power density or > 70% lower heating value energy efficiency)