Bernardo Sarruf

• PhD in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering
• Research Fellow at University of Birmingham

Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) enable the highly efficient conversion of fuels to electricity, offering notable fuel flexibility. However, conventional nickel-based SOFC anode materials currently available on the market are unable to effectively utilise low-carbon fuels without succumbing to carbon deposition, which degrades the anode rapidly. This...

Developing solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) with improved performance and lifetime continues to attract research attention from around the world. One important focus in this field is the synthesis of new air electrode materials that can replace the state-of-the-art lanthanum cobaltite-type phases. A host of materials with a wide range of properties h...

Thin gadolinium-doped ceria (GDC) films were deposited via the cost-effective aqueous spin coating technique and with rapid one-step sintering at 1200 °C, to be used as barrier layer between a lanthanum strontium cobalt ferrite (LSCF) cathode and a scandia-ceria-stabilised zirconia (ScCeSZ) electrolyte within a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) configur...

The Ruddlesden-Popper phase La2NiO4+δ (LNO214) has received a significant level of research attention with respect to its employment as a Solid Oxide Fuel Cell cathode material. However, it is known that there are many factors that are capable of influencing the performance of this phase when utilised in this role. One such factor that can impact o...

Solid oxide cells are devices that figure great versatility of fuels whilst in fuel cell mode like biogas, bioalcohols, or hydrogen with no need of high purification, and are also reversible, meaning that the same equipment can operate as an electrolyser being thus capable of converting water/steam or carbon dioxide into fuel for strategic reserve...

The energy transition calls upon the urgent necessity of clean and scalable energy production. In that context, green hydrogen delivery will be key to a successful change. Efforts to support higher efficiencies and degradation resistance are the main objectives of our research. In this work, we show the scaling-up step taken from electrolyte- to el...

The direct utilisation of primary fuels such as natural gas, green methane or ethanol represents a transition step towards a cleaner energy-based society. This work shows the influence of a nickel-free intermediate anode layer, and a ceria-based functional anode composite, on solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) performance when directly utilising dry meth...

Multifunctional macroporous solid oxide fuel cell anode with active nanosized ceramic electrocatalyst

Nickel-free solid oxide fuel cell anodes are an object of study for applications that aim at utilising primary carbonaceous fuels to generate power. In this study, a ceria-Co-Cu anode is produced and tested with hydrogen, methane and ethanol fuels at various temperatures. The produced catalysts were characterised by X-ray analysis and H2 temperatu...

Science and Engineering of Hydrogen-Based Energy Technologies explores the generation of energy using hydrogen and hydrogen-rich fuels in fuel cells from the perspective of its integration into renewable energy systems using the most sound and current scientific knowledge. The book first examines the evolution of energy utilization and the role ex...

One of the great challenges of solid oxide fuel cells development is operating with direct anhydrous methane as fuel, delivering reasonable power and avoiding anode depletion by carbon deposition. Operating the cells without adding water to the fuel diminishes system complexity and increases plant electric efficiency. This work aimed to develop an...

The operation of solid oxide fuel cells with direct anhydrous hydrocarbons, alcohols or syngas is one of the main technological challenges nowadays, being target of our previous works [1, 2]. This will represent a decrease in infrastructure needs of implementation and an increase in the systems efficiencies. The natural gas industry is one of the m...

The present work aims at producing an electrocatalyst suitable to be used as anode in solid oxide fuel cells that operates with hydrocarbons or alcohols as fuels. A cerium-cobalt-copper anode was developed, characterised and tested with hydrogen, anhydrous methane or anhydrous ethanol as fuels. The produced catalysts were characterised by X-ray an...

The utilisation of hydrocarbons as fuels in solid oxide fuel cells presents as an ingenious alternative for boosting the market widespread of such technology. The main advantage is the lower need of infrastructure investments. Therefore, the objective of this thesis was to develop a ceria-based material with cobalt and copper additions to serve as...

Solid oxide fuel cells have been subject of many developments especially concerning alternative fuels such as hydrocarbons and alcohols. The idea of using chemical energy to co-generate electricity and heat with high efficiency is aligned to good environmental practices. In addition, using hydrocarbons or alcohols as fuels massively increase the fe...

Solid oxide fuel cells have been subject of many developments especially concerning alternative fuels such as hydrocarbons and alcohols, mainly because these devices can convert chemical potential into electricity with high efficiencies. In addition, the direct utilisation of hydrocarbons or alcohols as fuels increases the feasibility of SOFC marke...

This chapter discusses the results of the work to develop SOFC anodes based on CeO2-Al2O3 electro catalysts for direct utilization of carbon-rich fuels. Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) have been developed for a broad spectrum of power generation applications. The reduction of ceria onto the alumina surface under hydrogen atmosphere has been shown to...

Solid oxide fuel cells are suitable and efficient choice for clean energy generation. One of the great challenges nowadays, relies on the utilisation of alternatives fuels other than pure hydrogen thus aiming to make the whole process simpler and cheaper. Methane can be used in a variety of ways in SOFC including steam reforming, dry reforming and...

Solid oxide fuel cells – SOFCs – are capable of converting methane directly by internal reforming. New materials development aim to reduce the difficulties of fuel pre-processing by allowing the direct utilisation of anhydrous fuels. This avoids the addition of water, thus reducing system complexity and operational costs. A CeO 2-Co 3 O 4-CuO based...

Solid oxide fuel cells are suitable and efficient choice for clean energy generation. One of the great challenges nowadays, relies on the utilisation of alternatives fuels other than pure hydrogen thus aiming to make the whole process simpler and cheaper. Methane can be used in a variety of ways in SOFC including steam reforming, dry reforming and...

As técnicas convencionais para aplicação da metalografia quantitativa têm sido cada vez mais substituídas por processos digitais devido à crescente necessidade de ganho de velocidade nas análises industriais e o processamento de imagens tem então ocupado um lugar importante nesse campo da metalurgia. Este trabalho teve como objetivo a implementação...

An electrocatalyst based on CeAlO3/CeO2–Al2O3 used in the composition of a multifunctional anode was prepared by the amorphous citrate method. The powder was treated at different temperatures (600 and 900 °C) to be characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Upon treatment in air, at 600 °C, the formation of CeAlO3 was favored. A phase...

The manufacturing of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) was carried out in the present work. Electrolyte supported cells, Strontium-doped Lanthanum Manganite cathodes, and anodes based on CeO2 􀀀 Al2O3 electrocatalyst, were manufactured. The main achievement of this anode was the decrease of carbon poisoning when hydrocarbons are used as fuel. Aiming thi...

O objetivo do presente trabalho é aplicar técnicas de medição de porosidade e tortuosidade através da reconstrução digital de volume. A técnica pode ser aplicada em eletrodos reais de PaCOS onde a amostra é seccionada através de feixe de íons focalizado (FIF). A reconstrução é feita a partir das imagens de cada camada da amostra gerada pelo FIF. Os...

The aim of this work is to make tortuosity and porosity measurements by the use of digital volume reconstruction technique. It can be applied on real SOFC electrodes where the sample is sliced by focused ion beam (FIB). The reconstruction is done from the images of each layer of the sample generated by FIB. The geometric parameters, such as porosit...

Neste estudo, foram desenvolvidos eletrodos eletrocatalisadores, a base de céria e Cu, para a oxidação direta de etanol em pilhas a combustível de óxido sólido (PaCOS). Um método alternativo, desenvolvido por Gortes et al [1], foi aplicado para a produção do composto Cu-CeO2-ZEI (zircônia estabilizada com 8% mol de ítria). Inicialmente, foi prepara...

Electro catalysts electrodes were developed in this work, using ceria and Cu, for the direct oxidation of ethanol in solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC). An alternative method developed by Gortes et al [1] was applied to the production of the compound Cu-CeO2-YSZ (8% mol yttria stabilized zirconia). A YSZ porous support was prepared, from a ceramic suspe...