Open Access

ARTICLE

Computer Modeling of Ionic Conductivity in Low Temperature Doped Ceria Solid Electrolytes

by Shu-Feng Lee¹, Che-Wun Hong¹

1 Department of Power Mechanical Engineering, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu 30013,Taiwan.
2 cwhong@pme.nthu.edu.tw (corresponding author)

Computers, Materials & Continua 2009, 12(3), 223-236. https://doi.org/10.3970/cmc.2009.012.223

Abstract

Solid oxides, such as ceria (CeO₂) doped with cations of lower valance, are potential electrolytes for future solid oxide fuel cells. This is due to the theoretically high ionic conductivity at low operation temperature. This paper investigates the feasibility of two potential electrolytes which are samarium-doped ceria (SDC) and gadolinium-doped ceria (GDC) to replace the traditional yttria-stablized zirconia (YSZ). Molecular simulation techniques were employed to study the influence of different dopant concentrations at different operation temperatures on the ionic conductivity from the atomistic perspective. Simulation results show that the optimized ionic conductivity occurs at 11.11mol% concentration using both dopants of Gd₂O₃ and Sm₂O₃. The temperature effect was also examined under a fixed concentration simulation to check how low temperature they still function. The predicted ionic conductivities have been verified with published experimental results and show reasonable agreements. This simulation technique reveals a clear picture with qualitative and quantitative connection between the choice of the dopant and the improvement of the ionic conductivity of fuel cell electrolytes.

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