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Experimental investigation into tungsten carbide thin films as solid oxide fuel cell anodes

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Abstract

Refractory carbides possess metal-like electronic and catalytic properties, which make them interesting candidates for anodes in solid oxide fuel cells. However, significant challenges include phase instability due to electrochemical potential gradient driven oxidation. This requires an understanding of both the chemical thermodynamics in operating environments along with direct measurement of the catalytic activity in fuel mixtures. Here, we present an experimental study on nanostructured WC as an anode for solid oxide fuel cells operating at 300–500 °C. This is enabled by combining calculated thermochemical equilibria validated against experiments at the material level and in fuel cell devices combined with flow reactor studies on fuel-selective catalytic activity directly at working anode interfaces. With an optimized anode microstructure and hydrogen–methane fuel mixtures, WC anode-based solid oxide fuel cells are shown to achieve a near-ideal open circuit voltage of 1.1 V at 500 °C.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Financial support from ARPA-E (DE–AR0000491) is acknowledged. We thank Neil Simrick and Zhuhua Cai for helpful discussions.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, USA

    Jun Jiang, Xiaofei Guan, Cynthia Friend & Shriram Ramanathan

  2. Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, USA

    Judith Lattimer & Cynthia Friend

  3. SiEnergy Systems LLC, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02110, USA

    Atul Verma & Masaru Tsuchiya

  4. School of Materials Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA

    Shriram Ramanathan

Authors
  1. Jun Jiang
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  2. Xiaofei Guan
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Correspondence to Jun Jiang.

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Jiang, J., Guan, X., Lattimer, J. et al. Experimental investigation into tungsten carbide thin films as solid oxide fuel cell anodes. Journal of Materials Research 31, 3050–3059 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2016.312

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2016.312

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