KIER: Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Performance Enhanced Threefold in 4 Minutes

2024-07-30

A joint research team, including Dr. Yoon-Seok Choi from the Korea Institute of Energy
Research (KIER), Prof. Woo-Cheol Jung from KAIST, and Prof. Beom-Kyung Park from
Pusan National University, has developed a catalytic coating technology that can boost the
performance of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) by up to three times in just 4 minutes.
SOFCs, which are gaining attention as highly efficient clean energy sources, operate at
temperatures above 700 degrees Celsius with both electrodes and electrolytes composed of
solid materials. One challenge with SOFCs is the slow reaction rate of the air electrode, which
hampers the overall reaction rate and necessitates research to address this issue.
The research team successfully developed a process to coat nano-sized praseodymium
oxide (PrOx) catalyst on the surface of a composite electrode (LSM-YSZ composite
electrode) to enhance the oxygen reduction reaction in SOFCs. This catalyst coating process
takes only 4 minutes and has significantly improved the performance of SOFCs, leading to a
threefold increase in power generation efficiency.

Source: https://news.nate.com/view/20240612n25411