A high-performance fuel electrode-supported tubular protonic ceramic electrochemical cell

Protonic ceramic electrochemical cells (PCECs) have received extensive attention for encouraging energy conversion and storage efficiencies. One of the key obstacles hindering the development of PCECs is the time-consuming and costly fabrication processes. In this study, we have fabricated fuel electrode-supported tubular PCECs via a facile and well-controlled phase inversion methhod combined with a dip-coating process. When operated in a fuel cell (FC) mode, single cells exhibit excellent peak power densities of 0.48, 0.91, 1.50, and 2.62 W cm -2 at 550–700 ℃, respectively. While in electrolysis cell (EC) mode, these tubular cells achieve high electrolysis current densities of − 0.61, − 1.59, − 3.03, and − 4.67 A cm -2 with reasonable Faradaic efficiencies at 550–700 ℃ and an applied voltage of 1.3 V, respectively. Additionally, cells can be stably operated at 0.5 A cm -2 for 120 h in FC mode and − 0.5 A cm -2 for 110 h in EC mode at 650 °C.