Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Symmetric-structure metal-supported solid oxide fuel cells (MS-SOFCs) are fabricated by infiltrating catalysts on both anode and cathode side. Various aspects of the infiltration process are optimized. Performance is found to be sensitive to precursor dilution, catalyst loading, and catalyst calcining temperature. For an optimized cell with lanthanum strontium manganite (LSM) as cathode and Sm0.2Ce0.8O2−δ mixed with Ni (SDCN) as anode, peak power densities of 0.44, 1.1, and 1.9 W cm−2 are achieved at 600, 700, and 800 °C, respectively. A fully symmetric MS-SOFC with SDCN as both the anode and cathode sides achieves moderate peak power densities of 0.12, 0.37, and 0.76 W cm−2 at 600, 700, and 800 °C, respectively. A solvent-based infiltration technique is also explored and found to be more effective than capillary forces alone but not as effective as vacuum infiltration.