SurfaceScience21 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik

O 35: Poster Session III: Surface dynamics I: Phase transitions and elementary processes

O 35.1: Poster

Dienstag, 2. März 2021, 10:30–12:30, P

Interphase Formation in Solid Oxide Electrolysis Cells - A Close-up on the YSZ/LSM Grain Boundary — •Hanna Tuerk, Karsten Reuter, and Christoph Scheurer — Fritz-Haber-Institute of the Max-Planck-Society

Solid oxide electrolysis cells (SOECs) are among the most efficient technologies for water splitting from fluctuating renewable electricity sources. While SOECs are in principle well adapted to intermittent operation, cell performance and lifetime is severely limited by degradation of the anode. This degradation goes hand in hand with the oxygen evolution reaction taking place at the triple-phase boundary (TPB) between the anode, the solid electrolyte and the gas phase. Up to now, the atomistic structure of this active catalyst region is essentially unknown though, which prevents a detailed analysis of the actual degradation mechanisms.

Here, we take a first step to elucidate the TPB structure by performing molecular simulations of the underlying interface between the oxygen-ion conducting electrolyte yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) and the typical electrode material strontium-doped lanthanum manganite (LSM). Parallel-tempering Monte Carlo with a cumulatively growing swapping region centered at the interface yields an efficient simulation approach capable of addressing the structural complexity of this grain boundary region. Our experimentally validated results clearly evidence the formation of an extended interphase region with partial loss of crystalline order and distinct segregation profiles.