The Influence of Sulfur Poisoning and YSZ Substrate Orientation on Electrochemical Properties of Nickel Pattern Anodes

Micro-patterned Ni thin films with well-defined 2D-structures are useful to examine electrochemical reaction kinetics of SOFC anodes. In this work, an electrode preparation method is developed yielding stable Ni pattern electrodes on YSZ, which facilitate long term measurements. Moreover, these stable electrodes allowed investigating the effect of the YSZ substrate orientation on the polarization resistance and interface capacitance. Statistical analysis of data obtained from 3 different substrates revealed no significant difference in polarization resistances and no significant difference in interface capacitance between single crystalline substrates ( = 0.05). Also, the effect of hydrogen sulfide on the polarization resistance was examined and the results are qualitatively equivalent to findings on cermet electrodes.