Publication date: 22nd July 2026
Developing cobalt-free oxygen electrodes that combine fast oxygen-reduction kinetics with sufficient electronic transport remains a key challenge for intermediate-temperature solid oxide fuel cells (IT-SOFCs). Here, we investigate B-site Ce substitution in SrFe1-xCexO3-δ (x = 0, 0.05, 0.10, 0.15, and 0.20) as a strategy to control the coupled structure–defect–transport chemistry of SrFeO3-δ. The materials were synthesized by a solid-state route and characterized by X-ray diffraction with Rietveld refinement, electron microscopy, HRTEM/SAED, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and temperature-dependent electrical conductivity.
Ce incorporation initially expands the perovskite lattice, whereas higher substitution levels lead to lattice-parameter saturation and weak CeO2/Sr3Fe2O7-δ segregation, indicating a composition-dependent limit of homogeneous incorporation. XPS reveals a Ce-induced redistribution of Fe3+/Fe4+ states and surface oxygen species, with SrFe0.85Ce0.15O3-δ showing the strongest defect-associated oxygen response. Electrical conductivity exhibits a non-monotonic dependence on Ce content and reaches its maximum at x = 0.15, demonstrating an optimum balance between defect activation and preservation of the electronically connected Fe–O–Fe network.
The optimized SrFe0.85Ce0.15O3-δ composition retains well-crystallized perovskite domains and was evaluated as the oxygen electrode in a NiO–YSZ | YSZ | SrFe0.85Ce0.15O3-δ single cell. The cell delivers a peak power density of 0.53 W cm-2 at 800 °C, while the polarization resistance decreases from 0.47 Ω at 600 °C to 0.36 Ω at 800 °C. These results demonstrate that controlled B-site Ce substitution provides an effective route to enhance oxygen-electrode performance through defect engineering without relying on cobalt or noble-metal co-catalysts, highlighting SrFe0.85Ce0.15O3-δ as a promising cathode for IT-SOFCs.
This research was supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan under Project Number AP26103025.
nanoGe is a prestigious brand of successful science conferences that are developed along the year in different areas of the world since 2009. Our worldwide conferences cover cutting-edge materials topics like perovskite solar cells, photovoltaics, optoelectronics, solar fuel conversion, surface science, catalysis and two-dimensional materials, among many others.
Previously nanoGe Spring Meeting (NSM) and nanoGe Fall Meeting (NFM), MATSUS is a multiple symposia conference focused on a broad set of topics of advanced materials preparation, their fundamental properties, and their applications, in fields such as renewable energy, photovoltaics, lighting, semiconductor quantum dots, 2-D materials synthesis, charge carriers dynamics, microscopy and spectroscopy semiconductors fundamentals, etc.
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV) is celebrated yearly in May. The main topics are the development, function and modeling of materials and devices for hybrid and organic solar cells. The field is now dominated by perovskite solar cells but also other hybrid technologies, as organic solar cells, quantum dot solar cells, and dye-sensitized solar cells and their integration into devices for photoelectrochemical solar fuel production.
Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics
The main topics of the Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics (IPEROP) are discussed every year in Asia-Pacific for gathering the recent advances in the fields of material preparation, modeling and fabrication of perovskite and hybrid and organic materials. Photovoltaic devices are analyzed from fundamental physics and materials properties to a broad set of applications. The conference also covers the developments of perovskite optoelectronics, including light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.
The International Conference on Perovskite Thin Film Photovoltaics Perovskite Photonics and Optoelectronics (NIPHO) is the best place to hear the latest developments in perovskite solar cells as well as on recent advances in the fields of perovskite light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.