Fabrication of Zirconia Electrolyte Films

Solid Oxide Fuel Cells Materials Properties and Performance 

FIGURE 1.12 Cross-sectional image of a five-layer cell with the anodic substrate Ni-YSZ, anodic functional layer Ni-ScSZ, electrolyte ScSZ, and interlayer GDC prepared with a tapecasting technique [79]. 

The slurry process has been enhanced with vacuum to fabricate planar SOFCs [78], This method is of low cost and thus has been widely used to develop low-cost SOFCs. However, together with other liquid precursor methods such as sol-gel and spray pyrolysis, it is time, labor, and energy intensive because the coating-drying-sintering has to be repeated in order to avoid cracking formation. 

Thermal spray, laser deposition, physical vapor deposition, and magnetron sputtering are physical processes that are used for fabrication of electrolyte thin films. Sputtering is a reliable technique for film deposition and is being used in industry 

FIGURE 1.13 SEM images of a 5- rni YSZ film on porous Ni-YSZ substrate deposited by RAS-1100C (a) as-deposited and (b) YSZ film postannealed at 1200°C [81]. 

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