Photo-assisted synthesis of protonated oxides for fuel cells
Atif Nazar, Bushra Bibi, Chenjie Lou, Fan Yang, Qi Fan, Yifu Jing, Shukui Li, Rizwan Raza, Muhammad Yousaf, Muhammad Junaid Afzal, Kashif Nazar, Mingxue Tang, Liangdong Fan, Bin Zhu
Abstract
The absence of intrinsic protons in proton-conducting oxides (PCO) is a significant challenge that limits the proton conductivity of proton-conducting perovskites, such as Y-doped BaMO3 (M = Zr, Ce), in proton ceramic fuel cells exhibit low conductivity (10-3 to 10-2 S cm-1 at 600 °C). Herein, we introduce a photo-assisted synthesis method for incorporating protons into Al-doped ceria (AlxCe1-xO2-δ, x = 0.2; M-ACO), leveraging the open cubic fluorite structure and photo-activated radical reactions. Specifically, photon-generated hydroxyl reactive $$\left({{{\rm{OH}}}}^{{{\bullet }}}\right)$$ and superoxide ( $${{{\rm{O}}}}_{2}^{{{\bullet }}-}$$ ) Radicals are generated and interact with the ACO crystal lattice, facilitating proton incorporation and resulting in the synthesis of native-proton-type PCO. This process results in a protonated (H-ACO) with a high proton conductivity of 0.14 S cm-1 and exceptional power density of 922 mW cm-2 at 500 °C. This versatile synthesis methodology offers broader development of advanced PCO for energy-related applications. The conductivity of proton-conducting perovskites is limited by the absence of intrinsic protons. Here, the authors introduce a synthesis method to incorporate protons into Al-doped ceria (AlxCe1-xO2-δ, x = 0.2) that relies on photo-activated radical reactions, producing a protonated conducting oxide with 922 mW cm-2 power density at 500 °C.