Synthesis and electrochemical properties of an oxide electrode layer prepared by a new electroless plating technique

A lanthanum strontium manganese thin oxide layer was plated on yttria stabilized zirconia by oxidizing the lanthanum strontium manganese ions with hydrogen peroxide as the oxidant. The plated oxide layer was firmly adherent to the substrate, and its morphology was finely porous. The crystal phase of the oxide was determined by XRD to be a perovskite-type. The mechanism for the oxide layer formation by an oxide electroless plating was studied by means of ESCA. As a cathode of solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC), the electrode characteristics of an oxide plated in this way were measured by the current interruption method at 1000° C. The cathodic overpotential of this electrode was less than 40 mV at 1 A cm^–2 This small overvoltage was considered to be based on an effective large electrode reaction area.