Tunning tin-based perovskite as an electrolyte for semiconductor protonic fuel cells

The use of ceramic semiconductors to serve as an efficient proton conductor is an evolving approach in the novel emerging field of semiconductor protonic fuel cells (SPFCs). One of the most critical challenges in SPFCs is to design a sufficient proton-conductivity of 0.1 S cm⁻¹ below <600 °C. Here we report to tune the perovskite BaSnO₃ (BSO), a semiconductor single-phase material, to be applied as a proton-conducting electrolyte for SPFC. It was found that the oxygen vacancies play a vital role to promote proton transport while the electronic short-circuiting issue of BSO semiconductor has been justified by the Schottky junction mechanism at the anode/electrolyte interface. We have demonstrated a SPFC device to deliver a maximum power density of 843 mW cm⁻² with an ionic conductivity of 0.23 S cm⁻¹ for BSO at 550 °C. The oxygen vacancy formation by increasing the annealing temperature helps to understand the proton transport mechanism in BSO and such novel low-temperature SPFC (LT-SPFC).