High-Entropy Spinel Oxide Nanostructures as Stable Cathodes for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells.

Chen, Zhaohui; Ma, Ben; Dang, Chen; Song, Jiahao; Zhou, Yingke · Nano Lett · 2025

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) represent a promising clean energy technology for efficient chemical-to-electrical energy conversion with minimal environmental impact. However, the development of cathode materials that can maintain both high performance and long-term stability remains challenging, particularly due to the degradation of nanostructured cathodes caused by particle coarsening. This study employs an impregnation method to fabricate high-entropy spinel oxide (Mg<sub>0.2</sub>Fe<sub>0.2</sub>Co<sub>0.2</sub>Ni<sub>0.2</sub>Cu<sub>0.2</sub>)Fe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>4</sub> (MFCNCF) nanoparticles with varying loadings on a porous Ce<sub>0.9</sub>Gd<sub>0.1</sub>O<sub>1.95</sub> (GDC) skeleton. The optimized cathode with 30 wt % MFCNCF loading achieves a remarkably low polarization resistance of 0.12 Ω·cm<sup>2</sup> and maximum power density of 1063.94 mW·cm<sup>-2</sup> at 800 °C. Most significantly, the entropy stabilization effect enables the high-entropy spinel oxide nanoparticles to maintain their microstructure throughout 240 h of operation with negligible performance degradation. The study introduces a novel strategy combining high-entropy design with nanostructure engineering to develop stable and high-performance cathode materials for SOFCs.