Performance of Sm 0.95 Ce 0.05 Fe 1-x Ni x O 3- Perovskite as Anode Materials under Methane Fuel for Low Temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (LT-SOFC) Syed M. Bukhari and Javier B. Giorgi Centre for Catalysis Research and Innovation, Department of Chemistry University of Ottawa, 10 Marie Curie Prvt., Ottawa, Ontario K1N 6N5, Canada Sm 0.95 Ce 0.05 Fe 1-x Ni x O 3- (x=0-0.05) perovskite materials were investigated for their candidacy as anodes for Low temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (LT-SOFC). Electrolyte supported button cells were made and tested with hydrogen and dry methane fuels. A three-electrode geometry was used and electrochemical impedance measurements were carried out revealing that Ni doping does improve the performance of the resulting anodes as indicated by a decrease in charge transfer resistance values. The value of charge transfer resistance is lowest for x=0.03 ( 2 at 600 o C) and only light coking was observed. Introduction Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) have capabilities to convert chemical energy of fuels into electrical energy with high efficiency and low pollution (1,2). However, to date, their high operating temperature and high fabrication cost significantly limit the development of SOFCs towards practical applications. Extensive research is on the way to address these problems. The anode is one of the important components of SOFCs which faces intense conditions like a highly reducing environment. Under such conditions, many materials tend to decompose, and additionally, the performance is greatly affected by coke and sulphur poisoning when exposed to hydrocarbon fuels such as natural gas. The conventional anode material for SOFCs is Ni/YSZ cermet which works reasonably well at high temperature but has issues of long term stability and poisoning from coke and sulphur under hydrocarbon fuels. It is highly desirable to make anode materials able to run SOFCs at lower temperature, while being resistant towards coke and sulphur under hydrocarbon fuels. Recently, perovskite type oxides (ABO 3 ) have opened a new door to solve the current issues of SOFCs (3, 4). Perovskite type oxides (ABO 3 ) contain a rare-earth metal and transition metals at A-site and B-site, respectively. The B-site metal typically provides an active site for catalysis while the A-site metal is responsible for thermodynamic stability and contributes in improving the catalytic performance via an interaction with the B-site metal (5). One of the great advantages of these perovskite materials is that their properties can be easily tailored according to the desired applications, by introducing substitutions at A- and B- sites (5). Additionally, lattice oxygen plays an important role in carbon cleaning mechanisms, where the oxygen is transported to the appropriate sites as required taking advantage of the mixed ion electron conductivity nature of the perovskite material (6, 7). In previous work we have reported that Ce doping in SmFeO 3 solves not only the reduction instability issue under reducing conditions, but it also improves the ECS Transactions, 35 (1) 1539-1544 (2011) 10.1149/1.3570138 ©The Electrochemical Society 1539 ) unless CC License in place (see abstract). ecsdl.org/site/terms_use address. Redistribution subject to ECS terms of use (see 54.91.164.131 Downloaded on 2016-10-27 to IP