Characterization of calcia stabilized zirconia as a solid electrolyte made through a sol gel method in solid oxide fuel cell

Abstract

Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) is a solid-state energy conversion device which produces electricity through the conversion of chemical energy directly to electrical energy. The research was carried out to characterize Calcia Stabilized Zirconia (CSZ) that was made using sol gel method. In this study, the production of CSZ pellets consisted of three steps. First step was the extraction of ZOC (ZrOCl28H2 O) and second step was the production of Zr(OH)4 and the last step was dissolution of ZrOH4 into HCl and then adding CaO to get CSZ powder. The CSZ powder was then pressed to form pellets, followed by sintering at 1200oC for 3 hours. The characterization was conducted using X ray diffraction to analyze the presence of impurities as well as the formation of cubic phase and scanning electron microscope was used to observe the pores in the microstructure. From the XRD data and SEM analysis, it can be concluded that the Calcia Stabilized Zirconia as a solid electrolyte in SOFC using sol gel method gave promising results.