Improved Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Performance with Nanostructured Electrolytes

Considerable attention has been focused on solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) due to their potential for providing clean and reliable electric power. However, the high operating temperatures of current SOFCs limit their adoption in mobile applications. To lower the SOFC operating temperature, we fabricated a corrugated thin-film electrolyte membrane by nanosphere lithography and atomic layer deposition to reduce the polarization and ohmic losses at low temperatures. The resulting micro-SOFC electrolyte membrane showed a hexagonal-pyramid array nanostructure and achieved a power density of 1.34 W/cm2 at 500 °C. In the future, arrays of micro-SOFCs with high power density may enable a range of mobile and portable power applications.