Planar Solid Oxide Fuel Cell: Electrolyte Deposited by Reactive Magnetron Sputtering and Cell Test

✍ Scribed by P. Coddet; M.-C. Pera; A. Billard

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 245 KB
• Volume: 11
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1615-6846
• DOI: 10.1002/fuce.201000123

✦ Synopsis

Solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) system development involves the decrease of the working temperature and the reduction of the cell cost to better fulfil industrial application requirements. The electrolyte thickness reduction can be exploited to enhance fuel cell performance and lifetime by decreasing the cell core resistance [1] and the material degradation. This approach is an alternative to the classical research of new materials having better oxygen conduction properties than YSZ. In this field of investigation techniques based on physical vapour deposition (PVD) represent an alternative to the classical deposition processes like tape casting or screen printing to obtain an electrolyte with a thick thickness (< 10 lm).

Various techniques such as reactive magnetron sputtering can be used to deposit SOFC electrolytes. Indeed magnetron sputtering technique allows the deposition of thin films that can be used to decrease the cell core resistance and then the operating temperature. This manufacturing process is also particularly adapted to the elaboration of thin coatings in the range 1-10 lm. However the deposition conditions of electrolyte coating must be investigated to elaborate a dense coating that can be used in SOFC field. In this work the commonly used materials such as yttria stabilised zirconia is studied. The deposition stage is performed by reactive magnetron sputtering in a chamber allowing a large scale production. Thus, yttrium-zirconium oxide coatings are deposited from 84 at.% Zr to 16 at.% Y metallic targets sputtered in argonoxygen reactive gas mixtures.

In this work, the main sputtering parameters allowing a high deposition rate of the ceramic compound and the improvement of the coating density are more particularly studied. The major problems identified to manufacture SOFC