The overall goal of this Boston University project is to deepen the fundamental knowledge and understanding of solid oxide fuel cell interfaces and to employ such understanding to greatly improve electrochemical performance while meeting SECA cost, stability, and lifetime targets at the cell level. Boston University plans to employ newer cathode and electrocatalyst materials and a variety of experimental and computational tools to achieve this goal. 

The specific objectives include: (i) Separating and identifying the influence of oxygen surface adsorption, transport pathways, electron transfer reaction, and incorporation into the electrolyte in the overall oxygen reduction reaction; (ii) Identifying the role and time evolution of the cathode surface and buried layer interface structure, surface electronic properties, surface composition, and the oxidation state of the transition metal ions during the oxygen reduction process; (iii) Using new materials combinations and architectures based on the knowledge gained from (i) and (ii), demonstrate a 50 percent improvement in performance in maximum power densities of cells compared to baseline cells employing state-of-the art materials and cell stability that shows 0.1 percent or less per 1000 hours degradation in cell performance.