Co-sintering of SDC/NiO-SDC bi-layers prepared by tape casting

In the development of intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cell (IT-SOFC), the anode supported thin electrolyte with higher conductivity than YSZ is an essential approach in recent years. In this work, we report our route that Ce0.8Sm0.2O1.9 (SDC) as electrolyte and porous NiO-SDC as anode substrate are prepared by a bi-layer tape casting and co-sintering process. The major effort was to adjust and control the shrinkage of the two material layers. It was found that only the specimens with less than 0.1% mismatching of the sintering shrinkage between two layers can result in the flat and crack free samples. In addition, high activity powders were the essential to obtain dense SDC electrolyte. Fuel cells with Sm0.5Sr0.5CoO3 as cathode were tested. The open circuit voltage (OCV) and the power density of the cells confirmed the full densification of the SDC electrolyte on the anode support.