Among the family of materials with the K2NiO4-type structure, Nd/Pr nickelates have extremely good performances as cathodes, especially at intermediate temperatures (700-800ºC), where the conventional oxygen conductor electrolytes like YSZ lose their supremacy. This intermediate temperature use, together with some chemical compatibility problems found with Zr based materials, make the combination of these nickelate cathodes with apatite electrolytes very interesting. The compatibility of two compositions, Pr2NiO4+δ and Nd1.95NiO4+δ with the electrolytes La9.67Si6O26.5 (LSO) and La9.67Si3Ge3O26.5 (LSGO) has been proved at different temperatures and symmetrical cells of these pairs have been electrically evaluated. In order to study the SOFC performance , Ni-based anode supported microtubular cells have been fabricated with LSO as electrolyte and cathode layer of Pr2NiO4+.

This work has been supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad grants MAT2012-30763 and MAT2010-19837. A. Orera acknowledges the financial support provided Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación through a Juan de la Cierva contract. Authors wish to thank Servicio General de Apoyo a la Investigación-SAI (Universidad de Zaragoza) for technical support in XRD and SEM experiments.

Trabajo presentado a la "Hydrogen & Fuell Cell Supergen Researcher Conference" celebrada en la Universidad de Birmingham (UK) del 16 al 18 de Diciembre de 2013.

Peer Reviewed