A brief review on ceria based solid electrolytes for solid oxide fuel cells

Abstract

During the last decades, advanced energy conversion and storage technologies have attracted growing attention due to increase in the energy demand and environmental retrogression. Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) are such kind of devices which converts chemical energy in fuels into electrical energy with high efficiency and no environmental issues. SOFCs have some unique advantages over other fuel cells such as multi fuel choice and the fast electrode kinetics due to high operating temperature. However, high operating temperature curbs their wide-scale commercialization. In order, many efforts have been made to reduce the working temperature which led to development of solid electrolytes showing promising conductivity at relatively low temperature. Ceria based solid electrolytes show promising conductivity in the temperature range, 500–700 °C. Moreover, the formation of nanocomposites of doped/co-doped ceria with alkali salts further reduces working temperature. SOFCs have three main components; anode, cathode and electrolyte. In this review, a brief history of development of conventional solid electrolytes along with detail insights into the recent developments regarding ceria based solid electrolytes with emphasis on the ionic conductivity has been discussed in the detail. © 2018 Elsevier B.V.