A Novel Pr2NiO4/Pr6O11 Based Composite As the Cathode for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

Praseodymium nickelate (Pr 2 NiO 4 ) is an active oxygen electrode in solid oxide fuel cells, however it undergoes a phase transition at elevated temperatures or under an electrochemical operation to form PrO x and higher ordered nickelate phase. In this work, we attempt to suppress the phase transition by adding Pr 6 O 11 to Pr 2 NiO 4 to form a composite. Two approaches are adopted: the first is to infiltrate Pr 2 NiO 4 with Pr 6 O 11 and the second one is to use a mixture of Pr 2 NiO 4 and Pr 6 O 11 powders. In case or (Pr,Nd) 2 NiO 4 is used, the 2 nd oxide phase is subsequently changed to (Pr,Nd) 2 O 3 . Anode supported single cells are used to measure the performance of the composite electrode. XRD is used to analyze the cathode structure and does show the suppression on phase evolution. In addition, the infiltrated cells show a high initial performance and the performance is stable during the 100-hours accelerated measurement.