Steam electrolysis by proton-conducting solid oxide electrolysis cells (SOECs) with chemically stable BaZrO3-based electrolytes

BaZrO3-based material was applied as the electrolyte for proton-conducting solid oxide fuel cells (SOECs). Compared with the instability of BaCeO3-based proton-conductors, BaZrO3-based material could be a more promising candidate for proton-conducting SOECs due to its excellent chemical stability under H2O conditions, but few reports on this aspect has been made due to the processing difficulty for BaZrO3. Our recent pioneering work has demonstrated the feasibility of using BaZrO3-based electrolyte for SOECs and the fabricated cell achieves relatively high cell performance, which is comparable or even higher than that for BaCeO3-based SOECs and offers better chemical stability. Cell performance can be further improved by tailoring the electrolyte and electrode.