Preparation of Silicate Based Glasses and their Interaction Study with Different Electrolytes for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

Abstract

The increasing demand of energy due to the increasing world population and their needs. Hence, new sustainable and environmentally friendly energy sources are required. Moreover, the fossil-based energy sources are also depleted with passage of time. Thus, a lot of research is going on to search for an alternative, renewable, sustainable, and clean source of energy. Many energy devices and their development are being progressed. These energy sources can be categorized as batteries, fuel cells and capacitors. Each source has advantages and disadvantages. Out of these sources, the fuel cells could be more environmental viable with better efficiency particularly solid oxide fuel cells. Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) qualify all of the above-mentioned requirements and they could be considered as the future sustainable and renewable source of energy. SOFC is an electrochemical device in which chemical energy change into electrical energy without combustion of fuels because of the reaction of fuel with the oxidant that is passing through the ionic conductor (solid electrolyte) at high temperature. High operating temperature SOFC is not only required to achieve the good catalytic activity of the electrodes (cathode and anode) usually made of ceramic materials in SOFC, but also to enhance the ionic and overall mixed conductivity of electrolyte and electrodes, respectively. The SOFC is different from conventional fuel cell technologies in numerous ways. They are entirely made of solid-state components and majorly by the ceramics. Secondly, the cells have a higher operating temperature range than any other fuel cell i.e. 800°C-1000°C. Third, there are no essential limitations on the cell configuration as well as fuel flexibility due to high temperature operation of SOFC. On the other hand, the high operating temperature of SOFC increases the interdiffusion among the components lead to corrosion and form undesirable crystalline phases during operation of SOFC. The formation of these crystalline phases ultimately reduced