The higher ionic conductivity of cerium gadolinium oxide (CGO) at temperature

ranges from 400 - 700 C has making it as a promising alternative solid electrolyte to yttria
stabilized zirconia (YSZ) in intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cell (IT-SOFC)
application. However, requirement of high sintering temperature of approximately at 1550
C for densification of CGO electrolyte has causing an increase of cost and complicates the
cell fabrication process as it reduces the porosity in the electrodes layers, particularly in the
co-sintering step of dual-layer hollow fiber (DLHF). Hence, the fabrication of the DLHF is
challenging due to the different sintering behaviors of the each layer. The main objective of
this study is to develop anode/electrolyte DLHFs with improved electrolyte properties and
reduced sintering temperature for IT-SOFCs via a single-step phase inversion-based co-
extrusion/co-sintering technique. The sintering properties of electrolyte flat sheet was studied
by comparing two approaches, i) using mix particle size electrolyte and (ii) addition of
lithium oxide (Li2O) as sintering additive in electrolyte. The DLHF comprising modified
electrolyte was later fabricated by phase inversion based co-extrusion and co-sintered at
temperature from 1400 to 1500 C. The developped DLHF was evaluated in term of the
morphology and mechanical strength, gas-tightness of the electrolyte layer and electrical
conductivity as well as porosity of the anode layer prior of construction of micro-tubular
SOFC. Results from this study showed that a dense CGO flat sheet layer sintered at 1450 C
with the addition of 30% nano size CGO particles were obtained. Meanwhile, doping of 2
mol% of LiNO3 into CGO via metal nitrate doping method has been found to reduce the
sintering temperature was reduced to a lower temperature (i.e to 1400 C) by doping 2 mol% Commented [U1]: Is this ok?
of LiNO3 into CGO via metal nitrate doping method. When increasing the co-sintering
temperature, Tthe mechanical strength of the developed DLHF, gas-tightness of the
electrolyte layer and electrical conductivity of the anode layer were increased are increased
with the increased of co-sintering temperature. Wwhereas the porosity of the anode layer was
decreased with the increased of co-sintering temperature. The DLHF that was co-sintered at
1450 C showed the sufficient properties and therefore, it was chosen for the construction of
micro-tubular SOFC. By comparing the maximum power density values for the three types of
micro-tubular SOFCs namely Ni-CGO/CGO (unmodified), Ni-CGO/30%nano-70%mic CGO
(first approach) and Ni-CGO/Li-CGO (second approach), the Ni-CGO/30%nano-70%mic
CGO dual layer micro-tubular SOFC performed the best. At 500 C, the cell produced about
the highest maximum power density which was 275 Wm-2 as compared to Ni-CGO/Li-CGO
cell (60 Wm-2) and Ni-CGO/CGO cell (200 Wm-2). Porous anode in Ni-CGO/30%nano-
70%mic CGO dual layer hollow fiber provides active site reaction while dense electrolyte
layer resulted from pore filling caused by introduction of 30% nano size CGO particles
reduce the direct flow of gases between the electrodes. Meanwhile, the closed pore caused by
the migration of Li ions in anode spongelike region of Ni-CGO/Li-CGO hindered the triple
phase boundary (TPB) region which eventually results in deleterious effect on the cell
performance. This phenomenon has limited the inclusion of Li in outer electrolyte layer of
the dual-layer hollow fiber. Nevertheless, the results from this study has proven the
feasibilities to accelerate the densification of electrolyte by incorporating nano size CGO and
sintering additives as well as it presented as an alternative solution to reduce the cost in
SOFC fabrication process.