Researchers at Georgia Tech have created a new ceramic material that could have revolutionary applications in fuel cell technology. It is still in a nascent, developmental stage, but it could reduce tremendously the cost of creating fuel cells. The high cost of fuel cells has been a barrier to their wider adoption.
The Georgia Tech researchers were supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Basic Energy Science Catalysis Science Program. Using the government money, they developed a new material for use in solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC). A SOFC generally uses a ceramic electrolyte, which in this case is a yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) ceramic. Traditionally, YSZ operates poorly in an SOFC because it is inefficient, clogs easily, and must operate at a high temperature due to its poor conductivity at low temperatures. The new ceramic material, though, gets around all these drawbacks.
The material is a Barium-Zirconium-Cerium-Yttrium-Ytterbium Oxide (BZCYYb), which can be used as a coating on a traditional anode or a replacement for YSZ altogether. It has been lab-proven for performance up to 1,000 hours of continuous use, but it requires more testing to determine its stability and lifespan.
Researcher Meilin Liu says,
“Solid oxide fuel cells offer high energy efficiency, the potential for direct utilization of all types of fuels including renewable biofuels, and the possibility of lower costs since they do not use any precious metals... We are working to reduce the cost of solid oxide fuel cells to make them viable in many new applications, and this new material brings us much closer to doing that.”
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