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Solvothermal Synthesis of PtNi Nanoparticle Thin Film Cathode with Superior Thermal Stability for Low Temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

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Abstract

This work adopts solvothermal synthesis to fabricate PtNi nanoparticles as thin film cathodes with superior resistance against thermally driven agglomeration for low temperature solid oxide fuel cells (LT-SOFCs) operating at 450 ºC. Metal-based porous electrodes are common choices for thin film LT-SOFCs, but pure metals with high density nanoscale porosities are vulnerable to thermal agglomeration, which imposes challenges to maintaining high performance with long-term stability. Typical Pt-based thin film cathodes are previously reported to sustain a record high 600 ºC of thermal annealing with acceptable morphological stability, but the temperature is still too low for practical LT-SOFC application. In this work, the solvothermal synthesized PtNi nanoparticle thin films show superior thermal stability, sustaining 10 h of annealing at 800 ºC without significant agglomeration observed. By controlling the length of synthesis time, the particle sizes and Pt loading ratio can be varied. The cost-effective solvothermal synthesis process for the fabrication of PtNi thin film cathode is a promising way for LT-SOFC manufacturing in scale as it involves no vacuum process like typical sputtering.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the financial support from the Singapore Ministry of Education under AcRF Tier 1 Project No. RG73/22.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore, 639798, Singapore

    Jiyoon Shin, Hao-Yang Li & Pei-Chen Su

  2. Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N), Interdisciplinary Graduate School, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Drive, Singapore, 637553, Singapore

    Kittiwat Kamlungsua & Pei-Chen Su

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  1. Jiyoon Shin
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JS: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing-Original draft preparation, Writing-Review and Editing. KK: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation. H-YL: Investigation. P-CS: Supervision, Writing-Review & Editing.

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Correspondence to Pei-Chen Su.

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Shin, J., Kamlungsua, K., Li, HY. et al. Solvothermal Synthesis of PtNi Nanoparticle Thin Film Cathode with Superior Thermal Stability for Low Temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cells. Int. J. of Precis. Eng. and Manuf.-Green Tech. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40684-023-00576-7

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