A highly active CH₄ catalyst correlated with solid oxide fuel cell anode performance

Abstract

Methane catalytic abilities are considered to be an important and direct form of experimental evidence for evaluating the efficacy of mixed oxide-ion/electron conductors (MIEC) as anode materials for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) with CH₄ as the fuel gas. Therefore, a direct link between the quantifiable methane-conversion abilities and CH₄-based SOFC electrochemical performance is urgently needed. Here, H₂-reduced Sr₂ZnMoO₆(R-SZMO) as an anode example exhibits excellent catalytic abilities and tolerance to coking when using CH₄ as the fuel gas, which is dominated by the formation of intrinsic anion-Frenkel defect pairs. DFT calculations reveal that the efficient electron transfer process and optimal selectivity towards CH₄ conversion are both on the R-SZMO (110) surface. Therefore, applying high CH₄ activity R-SZMO as the anode catalyst gives excellent anti-carbon deposition performance, high power output, and long-term stability for SOFCs with CH₄ as the fuel gas.