Solid oxide fuel cell

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9887424-B2
Application number	US-201414487625-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 16, 2014
Priority date	Mar 19, 2013
Publication date	Feb 6, 2018
Grant date	Feb 6, 2018

Abstract

A solid oxide fuel cell comprises a solid electrolyte layer, a barrier layer, and a cathode. The cathode includes a cathode current collecting layer and a cathode active layer. The cathode active layer includes a plurality of micro-cracks in a surface region within a predetermined distance from the interface between the barrier layer and the cathode active layer.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A solid oxide fuel cell comprising:
an anode;
a cathode containing a perovskite complex oxide expressed by the general formula ABO 3 as a principal component, the perovskite complex oxide including at least one of La or Sr at the A site; and
a solid electrolyte layer disposed between the anode and the cathode,
the cathode including a plurality of micro-cracks in a surface region within a distance of 0.5 micrometers from a surface on a solid electrolyte layer side, the plurality of micro-cracks having an average length of at least 100 nanometers to no more than 1000 nanometers,
the plurality of micro-cracks having an average width of at least 1 nanometer to no more than 100 nanometers, and
the plurality of micro-cracks including at least one of a micro-crack which is formed along a grain boundary between particles that configure the cathode, a micro-crack which is formed to split at least one of the particles, and a micro-crack which has a portion that is formed along the grain boundary and a portion that is formed to split at least one of the particles.

2. The solid oxide fuel cell according to claim 1 , wherein
at least one micro-crack of the plurality of micro-cracks is observed in at least one field of arbitrary 20 fields in a cross section of the surface region when the arbitrary 20 fields are observed using a scanning electron microscope with a magnification of 30,000×.

3. The solid oxide fuel cell according to claim 2 , wherein
at least one micro-crack of the plurality of micro-cracks is observed in respectively at least two fields of the arbitrary 20 fields in the cross section of the surface region when the arbitrary 20 fields are observed using a scanning electron microscope with a magnification of 30,000×.

4. The solid oxide fuel cell according to claim 1 , wherein
the cathode has a cathode current collecting layer, and a cathode active layer disposed between the cathode current collecting layer and the solid electrolyte layer,
the cathode current collecting layer contains the perovskite complex oxide expressed by the general formula ABO 3 as a principal component, A including at least La, and B including at least one of Ni, Fe and Cu, and
the cathode active layer contains a material expressed by the general formula A′B′O 3 as a principal component, A′ including at least one of La and Sr, and B′ including at least one of Co and Fe.

5. The solid oxide fuel cell according to claim 1 , wherein
a material used to configure the surface region has at least one different physical property than a material used to configure a second region of the cathode.

Assignees

• Ngk Insulators Ltd

Inventors

• Kobayashi Ayano
• Ohmori Makoto
• Okamoto Mariko

Classifications

• Y02E60/525

  Cross-Sectional Technologies · mapped topic

• H01M8/12

  operating at high temperature, e.g. with stabilised ZrO2 electrolyte · CPC title

• C04B2235/656

  characterised by specific heating conditions during heat treatment · CPC title

• Y02P70/56

  Cross-Sectional Technologies · mapped topic

• C04B2235/85

  Intergranular or grain boundary phases · CPC title