Transcript Dipartimento di Scienze Sezione di Nanoscienze Seminari di Sezione

Dipartimento di Scienze
Sezione di Nanoscienze
Seminari di Sezione
25 gennaio 2016 ore 15.00-16.00
aula B, via della Vasca Navale 84
info: [email protected]
Ore15.00 – Nanostructured Materials for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells
Elisabetta Di Bartolomeo
Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata
Abstract
Alternative energy production is one of the major problems for future sustainable
development and solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) are a promising technology for this aim. Their
fuel flexibility has lead SOFCs to be considered as the most promising resource for
distributed power applications. However, long lasting systems that can operate on a range of
fuels are not yet available and are still subject to intense research and development.
Moreover, SOFCs mass development is hindered by high costs due to high operation
temperature (1000° C). Significant research efforts have been devoted to decreasing the
SOFC operation temperature in the intermediate range (600-800°C). The aim of reducing
temperature has been mainly achieved controlling chemistry and microstructure of
innovative materials for electrolyte and electrodes, through fundamental understanding of
the relevant basic science. Reducing the operation temperature, though, increases the
polarization losses at the electrodes, in particular at the cathode. Therefore, the
development of cathode materials showing fast charge transfer kinetics at low temperatures
is critical. The search for those materials has been achieved on one side controlling their
chemistry, by searching for new compositions taking into account oxygen vacancy content
and electrocatalytic activity towards oxygen reduction reaction. On the other hand, electrode
materials microstructure has been tailored to increase the triple phase boundary that is
known to improve electrode performance, decreasing their pore and grain size. In particular,
many efforts, mainly concerning the microstructural control, have been devoted in recent
years to improve performance and stability of cells directly fed with hydrocarbons. Main and
recent achievements of the research group of Department of Chemical science and
Technologies of University of Rome Tor Vergata will be presented.