Novel polymer fibers prepared by electrospinning for use as the pore-former for the anode of solid oxide fuel cell

One-dimensional polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) fibers prepared by electrospinning technique are used as a novel pore-former for the conventional NiO/yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) anodes of solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC). This pore-former forms wire-like pores in the anode substrates, which are beneficial for rapid transport of the fuel and byproduct. The advantage of using this pore-former over the conventional ones (e.g. wheat flour and carbon) is that only a small amount of fibers could generate large amount of continuous pores within the anode for gas transport. In addition the cell with PVA fibers as poreformer for anode exhibits enhanced anode electrocatalytic activity and the cell performance significantly, compared to the cells without pore-former and with wheat flour as pore-former. In this research, an anode-supported SOFC with PVA fibers as pore-former for anode exhibits an open-circuit voltage (OCV) of 1.08V and maximum power density of 751mWcm^-2 at 800 °C.