Successful preparation of BaCo _0.5Fe _0.5O _{3– <i>δ</i>} cathode oxide by rapidly cooling allowing for high-performance proton-conducting solid oxide fuel cells

A pure phase BaCo0.5Fe0.5O3–δ (BCF), which cannot be obtained before, is successfully prepared in this study by using the calcination method with a rapid cooling procedure. The successful preparation of BCF allows evaluation material as cathode for proton-conducting solid oxide fuel cells (H-SOFCs) first time. An H-SOFC achieves an encouraging cell performance 2012 mW·cm–2 at 700 ℃, two-fold higher than that similar classical high-performance Ba0.5Sr0.5Co0.8Fe0.2O3–δ (BSCF) cathode. First-principles calculations reveal mechanism enhancement, indicating new significantly lowers energy barriers oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) compared BSCF Therefore, improved and output are cell. also shows excellent long-term stability can work stably nearly 900 h without noticeable degradations. current superior to most H-SOFCs reported previous reports, suggesting promising H-SOFCs.