Power and carbon monoxide co-production by a proton-conducting solid oxide fuel cell with La0.6Sr0.2Cr0.85Ni0.15O3−δ for on-cell dry reforming of CH4 by CO2

Abstract

To directly use a CO₂–CH₄ gas mixture for power and CO co-production by proton-conducting solid oxide fuel cells (H-SOFCs), a layer of in situ reduced La_0.6Sr_0.2Cr_0.85Ni_0.15O_3−δ (LSCrN@Ni) is fabricated on a Ni–BaZr_0.1Ce_0.7Y_0.1Yb_0.1O_3−δ (BZCYYb) anode-supported H-SOFC (H-DASC) for on-cell CO₂ dry reforming of CH₄ (DRC). For demonstrating the effectiveness of LSCrN@Ni, a cell without adding the LSCrN@Ni catalyst (H-CASC) is also studied comparatively. Fueled with H₂, both H-CASC and H-DASC show similar stable performance with a maximum power density ranging from 0.360 to 0.816 W cm⁻² at temperatures between 550 and 700 °C. When CO₂–CH₄ is used as the fuel, the performance and stability of H-CASC decreases considerably with a maximum power density of 0.287 W cm⁻² at 700 °C and a sharp drop in cell voltage from the initial 0.49 to 0.10 V within 20 h at 0.6 A cm⁻². In contrast, H-DASC demonstrates a maximum power density of 0.605 W cm⁻² and a stable cell voltage above 0.65 V for 65 h. This is attributed to highly efficient on-cell DRC by LSCrN@Ni.