Strontium-doped lanthanum copper oxide as a solid oxide fuel cell cathode material

This paper reports on research to identify and characterize new electrode materials that will improve upon those currently used, and to develop reliable techniques for depositing them as electrodes. Work in the literature suggests that strontium-doped lanthanum cuprate may have a sufficiently high electronic conductivity and a useful ionic conductivity for this type of fuel cell design. Particular emphasis has been given to preparation ion techniques for the oxide powder and electrodes in which a precursor to the oxide is formed with homogeneity on an atomic scale. Most of these techniques are directly applicable to other mixed-metal oxides and enable particle size and electrode thickness to be controlled reproducibly. Additionally, the oxide phase can be formed at temperatures as low as 500 degrees C. The products formed in these preparation routes have been investigated using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM)