Rational design of lower-temperature solid oxide fuel cell cathodes via nanotailoring of co-assembled composite structures.

A novel in situ co-assembled nanocomposite LSM-Bi1.6 Er0.4 O3 (ESB) (icn-LSMESB) was obtained by conjugated wet-chemical synthesis. It showed an enhancement of the cathode polarization at 600 °C by >140 times relative to conventional LSM-Y0.08 Zr0.84 O1.92 (YSZ) cathodes and exceptional solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) performance of >2 W cm(-2) below 750 °C. This demonstrates that this novel cost-effective and broadly applicable process provides new opportunities for performance enhancement of energy storage and conversion devices by nanotailoring of composite electrodes.