US Patent 7914941 Solid oxide fuel cell and manufacturing method thereof

An electric power generation cell 1 is constituted by arranging a fuel electrode layer 4 on one side of a solid electrolyte layer 3 and an air electrode layer 2 on the other side of the solid electrolyte layer 3. The solid electrolyte layer 3 is constituted of an oxide ion conductor mainly composed of a lanthanum gallate based oxide. The fuel electrode layer 4 is constituted of a porous sintered compact having a highly dispersed network structure in which a skeletal structure formed of a consecutive array of metal grains is surrounded by mixed conductive oxide grains. For the air electrode layer 2, a porous sintered compact mainly composed of cobaltite is used. This configuration reduces the overpotentials of the respective electrodes and the IR loss of the solid electrolyte layer 3, and accordingly can actualize a solid oxide type fuel cell excellent in electric power generation efficiency.