COMICON Combinatorial Materials Science for Protonic Electrochemichal Energy Conversion

• Amedjkouh, Yani Leo; Jiang, Bo; Rosnes, Andreas; Wenckstern, Holger Von & Polfus, Jonathan M. (2025). Combinatoral PLD of proton ceramic electrode materials with exsolved nanoparticles. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Protonic ceramic electrochemical cells (PCECs) are poised to be a critical technology for the electrification of energy and chemical industry using hydrogen. One of the main bottlenecks hodling their widespread adoption back is the sluggish oxygen evolution/reduction reactions (OER/ORR) at the positrode. Wang et al. reported that Ba0.875Fe0.875Zr0.125O3-"δ" (D-BFZ) exhibits remarkable performance as a triple conducting PCFC positrode (Wang 2022). Here, we investigate further improvement of this system by exsolving nanoparticles of Co3O4 or noble metals such as Pt, Ir, Rh and Ru for improved OER/ORR kinetics. Combinatorial pulsed-laser deposition (c-PLD) is a novel thin film deposition technique for obtaining thin films with a continuous composition spread (CCS) (von Wenckstern 2020). D-BFZ doped with the cation species to be exsolved is deposited with a gradient in Ba-deficiency across the film. Spatially resolved synchrotron X-ray diffraction (XRD) and absorption spectroscopy (XAS) is utilized to study the impact of Ba-deficiency on the exsolution process and the resulting nanoparticle characteristics. Further studies involve oxygen exchange kinetics of pristine and exsolved materails using pulsed isotope exchange (PIE). Thus, the impact of the transition metal on the oxygen exchange kinetics can be directly compared between it being exsolved as nanoparticles and incorporated in the perovskite lattice.

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