Earticle

Copper is able to work as a current collector under wide range of hydrocarbon fuels without coking in Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). The application of copper in SOFC is limited due to its low melting point, which result in coarsening the copper particle. This work focuses on the sintering of copper powder with ceria coating layer. Ceria-coated powder was prepared by thermal decomposition of urea in Ce(NO3)3·6H2O solution, which containing CuO core particles. The ceria-coated powder was characterized by XRD, ICP, and SEM. The thermal stability of the ceria-coated copper in fuel atmosphere (H2) was observed by SEM. It was found that the ceria coating layer could effectively hinder the grain growth of the copper particles.