Synthesis and characterization of co-doped ceria-based electrolyte material for low temperature solid oxide fuel cell

Co-doped CeO ₂ (Ba _0.10 Ga _0.10 Ce _0.80 O _3–δ ) was synthesized via a cost-effective co-precipitation technique, and the electrochemical properties of the solid oxide fuel cell were studied. The microstructural and surface morphological properties were investigated by XRD and SEM, respectively. The structure of the prepared material was found to be cubic fluorite with an average crystallite size of 36 nm. The ionic conductivity of the prepared BGC (Ba _0.10 Ga _0.10 Ce _0.80 O _3–δ ) electrolyte material was measured as 0.071 S cm ⁻¹ . The activation energy was found to be 0.46 eV using an Arrhenius plot. The maximum power density and current density achieved were 375 mW cm ⁻² and 893 mA cm ⁻² , respectively, at 650 °C with hydrogen as a fuel. This study shows that the prepared co-doped electrolyte material could be used as a potential electrolyte to lower the operating temperature of solid oxide fuel cells.