Highly efficient reversible protonic ceramic electrochemical cells for power generation and fuel production

Reversible fuel cells based on both proton exchange membrane fuel cell and solid oxide fuel cell technologies have been proposed to address energy storage and conversion challenges and to provide versatile pathways for renewable fuels production. Both technologies suffer challenges associated with c...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature energy 2019-03, Vol.4 (3), p.230-240
Main Authors: Duan, Chuancheng, Kee, Robert, Zhu, Huayang, Sullivan, Neal, Zhu, Liangzhu, Bian, Liuzhen, Jennings, Dylan, O’Hayre, Ryan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/301/299/886
639/301/299/893
639/4077/909/4086/4087
Barium
Calorific value
Carbon dioxide
Ceramics
Economics and Management
Efficiency
Electricity
Electrochemical cells
Electrochemistry
Electrolysis
Electrolytic cells
Energy
Energy conversion
Energy conversion efficiency
Energy Policy
Energy Storage
Energy Systems
Fuel cells
Fuel production
Fuel technology
Product development
Proton exchange membrane fuel cells
Renewable and Green Energy
Renewable fuels
Solid oxide fuel cells
Ytterbium
Yttrium
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Reversible fuel cells based on both proton exchange membrane fuel cell and solid oxide fuel cell technologies have been proposed to address energy storage and conversion challenges and to provide versatile pathways for renewable fuels production. Both technologies suffer challenges associated with cost, durability, low round-trip efficiency and the need to separate H 2 O from the product fuel. Here, we present a reversible protonic ceramic electrochemical cell based on an yttrium and ytterbium co-doped barium cerate–zirconate electrolyte and a triple-conducting oxide air/steam (reversible) electrode that addresses many of these issues. Our reversible protonic ceramic electrochemical cell achieves a high Faradaic efficiency (90–98%) and can operate endothermically with a >97% overall electric-to-hydrogen energy conversion efficiency (based on the lower heating value of H 2 ) at a current density of −1,000 mA cm −2 . Even higher efficiencies are obtained for H 2 O electrolysis with co-fed CO 2 to produce CO and CH 4 . We demonstrate a repeatable round-trip (electricity-to-hydrogen-to-electricity) efficiency of >75% and stable operation, with a degradation rate of
ISSN:2058-7546
2058-7546
DOI:10.1038/s41560-019-0333-2