Fabrication and characterization of sol-gel derived platinum-modified LSCF as cathode electrode for solid oxide fuel cells.

Fuel cells are one of the green energy sources in recent days. They can produce electricity directly by combining hydrogen ions with oxygen ions by a chemical reaction, forming water as the by product. There are different kinds of fuel cells available but among those solid oxide fuel cells are used in production of electricity in large stationary systems. They work at very high temperatures. These fuel cells require electrodes with high efficiency, among these electrodes cathode is an important part, because all the oxygen reduction reactions takes place at cathode. LSCF is one of the best materials available to use as cathode for solid oxide fuel cells. For improving the performance efficiency of this cathode material, LSCF is modified with platinum by using sol-gel method. This newly fabricated cathode material Pt-LSCF is characterized by using microscopic techniques like SEM, TEM and AFM. The stability of the colloidal cathode material is determined by Zetapotential analyzer. The crystal structure, crystal length and lattice distortion is determined by XRD. Elemental composition of this material is determined by XRF and XPS.