High-Entropy Alloy Nanoparticle Decorated Perovskite Oxides as Fuel Electrode for Reversible Solid Oxide Cells

Wenle Yan^a^,^b, Shiyu Zhen^c, Sixie Chen^a^,^b, Xi Chen^a^,^b, Yan Lin^a, Jing Xia^a^,^d, Hitoshi Takamura^e, Liang Zhang^c, Min Xu^a^,^d, Di Chen^a^,^f

^aThe Future Lab, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 10084, China

^bWeiyang College, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 10084, China

^cSchool of Vehicle and Mobility, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

^dAcademy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 10084, China

^eDepartment of Materials Science, Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8579, Japan

^fSchool of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 10084, China

Proceedings of 24th International Conference on Solid State Ionics (SSI24)

Emerging Materials for High-Performance Devices

London, United Kingdom, 2024 July 14th - 19th

Organizers: John Kilner and Stephen Skinner

Oral, Wenle Yan, presentation 298
Publication date: 10th April 2024

High-entropy materials have been exploited in various applications including thermo-electrics, catalysis, energy storage and conversion performance. Benefits from the structural flexibility of perovskite materials, we successfully synthesize high-entropy materials by introducing multi-dopants into the B-site of the host oxides via a simple sol-gel method. Notably, our study reveals the formation of high-entropy alloy nanoparticles during the reduction. These metal nanoparticles are believed to serve as active sites, further enhancing catalytic performance^[1,2]. The evolution of these multi-metallic species through reduction analysis was investigated by reduction analysis, XPS, elemental mapping, and high-temperature XRD. To elucidate their formation, we propose an oxidation-driven mechanism based on the control of temperature and oxygen partial pressure. The effects of entropy were studied by fabricating the material into high-temperature solid oxide cells. The incorporation of high entropy not only enhances the catalytic activity of the electrodes but also improves the stability of solid oxide cells. The area-specific resistance of the cells was reduced about 10 times from singly dopant material to high-entropy perovskite oxides. The cell with Ni-doped perovskites displays about 23 % deterioration while the high-entropy electrode possesses only 1 % deterioration for a 50-h stability test. We utilized DFT calculations to elucidate the superior performance of high-entropy alloy (HEA) metals in solid oxide cells (SOCs). Our findings suggest that HEAs can efficiently modulate surface-adsorption interactions towards the high-activity region compared to their ternary or single-element counterparts.

This work presents a synthesis route for high-entropy perovskite oxides, furthermore, it sheds light on the design of materials featuring multi-metallic species. These materials exhibit enhanced efficiency and stability as electrodes, contributing to advancements in energy conversion technologies.

References:

[1] Xu, M.,Cao, R.,Wu, S.,Lee, J.,Chen, D.,Irvine, J. T. S., Nanoparticle exsolution via electrochemical switching in perovskite fibers for solid oxide fuel cell electrodes. J. Mater. Chem. A 2023, 11, 13007-13015.

[2] Xu, M.,Cao, R.,Qin, H.,Zhang, N.,Yan, W.,Liu, L.,Irvine, J. T. S.,Chen, D., Exsolved materials for CO2 reduction in high-temperature electrolysis cells. Mater. Reports: Energy 2023, 100198.

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