In-situ quantification of solid oxide fuel cell electrode microstructure by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy

Three-dimensional (3D) microstructure of solid oxide fuel cell electrodes plays critical roles in determining fuel cell performance. The state-of-the-art quantification technique such as X-ray computed tomography enables direct calculation of geometric factors by 3D microstructure reconstruction. Taking advantages of in-situ, fast-responding and low cost, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy represented by distribution of relaxation time (DRT) is a novel technique to estimate geometric properties of fuel cell electrodes. In this study, we employed the anode supported cells with the cell configuration of Ni-YSZ parallel to YSZ parallel to LSM-YSZ as an example and compared the tortuosity factor of pores of the anode substrate layer by X-ray computed tomography and DRT analysis. Good agreement was found, validating the feasibility of in-situ microstructural quantification by using the DRT technique. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.