Method for rapidly sintering solid electrolyte, compact solid electrolyte obtained by method and application of compact solid electrolyte
Technical Field
The present invention relates to solid electrolytes, and more particularly to a method of rapidly sintering a solid electrolyte and the resulting dense solid electrolyte and its applications.
Background
The solid electrolyte is typically used in a fuel cell, and a combustible gas can be directly converted into electric energy at a high temperature, so that the conversion rate is far higher than that of conventional thermal power generation, and the solid electrolyte is environmentally friendly. With the development of the computer level, the computer simulation is far beyond the experimental progress, and accelerating the experimental progress of the solid electrolyte is an important task of current scientific research work.
The conventional process of sintering the solid electrolyte in an electric furnace takes several hours or tens of hours, the spark plasma sintering equipment is expensive, the flash sintering generally needs expensive Pt electrodes, and the flash sintering condition depends on the electrical properties of the material, so that the flash sintering has no universality and limits the practicability of the flash sintering equipment for high-flux treatment when the material performance is unknown. The photon sintering temperature is typically not as high as the temperature at which the solid electrolyte is sintered. The rapid annealing furnace can only provide sintering temperature as high as 1200 ℃, commercial equipment is expensive, high-end rapid firing equipment is difficult to prepare for a common laboratory, and the conventional electric furnace has long sintering service time.
In conclusion, it is necessary to develop a simple and fast sintering method, and some fast sintering devices exist at present, but the methods cannot be popularized and used in solid electrolyte sintering due to high price or insufficient temperature.
Disclosure of Invention
In order to solve the problems that the sintering temperature of the solid electrolyte in the prior art is insufficient or cannot be popularized, the invention provides a method for rapidly sintering the solid electrolyte, a compact solid electrolyte obtained by the method and application of the compact solid electrolyte.
The invention provides a method for rapidly sintering a solid electrolyte, which comprises the following steps: s1, pressing the solid electrolyte nano powder into a sheet; and S2, providing a rapid sintering device with two carbon papers spaced from each other, clamping the sheets between the carbon papers, electrifying the carbon papers to enable the carbon papers to generate Joule heat under the action of current so as to sinter by adjusting the temperature of the carbon papers, and obtaining the dense solid electrolyte.
Preferably, the solid electrolyte is yttria stabilised zirconia or ceria. In a preferred embodiment, the solid electrolyte is 8 YSZ.
Preferably, in step S1, the solid electrolyte nanopowder is placed in a tabletting mold and slowly pressurized to 400MPa to 600MPa to obtain a sheet. In a preferred embodiment, 0.09g of 8YSZ nanopowder is placed in a tabletting mold with a diameter of 5mm, slowly pressurized to 500MPa and left to stand for about 30 seconds to obtain a sheet. It should be understood that the tableting operation should use as much pressure as possible within the safe use range of the tableting die to promote sufficient contact of the solid electrolyte nanopowder to form the sheet.
Preferably, the thickness of the sheet is within 2 mm.
Preferably, the rapid sintering device further comprises an outer cover, a support plate, electrodes and a power supply, wherein the outer cover provides a closed space, the support plate is fixedly installed in the closed space, two ends of the carbon paper are respectively and fixedly installed between the electrodes and carried on the support plate, and the power supply is connected with the electrodes through cables outside the outer cover to supply current to the carbon paper.
Preferably, the power supply is a low voltage dc power supply.
Preferably, the outer envelope is a quartz glass envelope and the support plate is a quartz plate. It is understood that the quartz material of the quartz glass cover and the quartz plate has good heat resistance and high light transmittance, and a large amount of heat radiation is not absorbed, which is advantageous for structural stability and is not damaged by high temperature.
Preferably, the diameter of the sheet is less than 2/3 the width of the carbon paper to prevent the sheet from being heated unevenly.
Preferably, the temperature of the carbon paper is adjusted to be between 2/3 f, the melting point of the solid electrolyte, and the melting point, ensuring rapid sintering while the sheet remains massive.
Preferably, the carbon paper is sintered by adjusting the temperature to 1786-2680 ℃. It will be appreciated that the temperature range of 1786 deg.C to 2680 deg.C lies between 2/3 deg.C and the melting point of pure zirconia, ensuring rapid sintering while the sheet remains massive. In a preferred embodiment, the temperature of the carbon paper is adjusted to 2400 ℃ for 25 seconds, and then the carbon paper is sintered for 30 seconds while maintaining the temperature of 2400 ℃ to obtain a dense solid electrolyte.
The invention also provides a dense solid electrolyte obtained according to the above method.
The invention also provides an application of the compact solid electrolyte in a molten salt battery.
According to the method for rapidly sintering the solid electrolyte, the cheap carbon paper generates the Joule heat under the action of the current, the Joule heat which is gathered in a large amount in a short time can rapidly sinter the solid electrolyte sheet in a heat radiation and heat conduction mode, and the progress of high-flux screening of the solid electrolyte is accelerated. In conclusion, according to the method for rapidly sintering the solid electrolyte, the rapid sintering device for sintering is low in price, simple to implement, capable of being used without strict training, high in sintering temperature provided by the carbon paper, capable of meeting the sintering requirement of the solid electrolyte, short in time, fast in speed, capable of finishing the whole sintering process within one minute, for example, the average temperature rise rate is about 96 ℃ per second, and the method for rapidly sintering the solid electrolyte greatly improves the sintering efficiency of the solid electrolyte and has a good application prospect.
Drawings
Fig. 1 is a schematic structural view of a rapid sintering apparatus used in a method of rapidly sintering a solid electrolyte according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention;
fig. 2 is an SEM image of a dense solid electrolyte obtained by a method of rapidly sintering a solid electrolyte according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention;
fig. 3 is a photograph of a dense solid electrolyte obtained by a method of rapidly sintering a solid electrolyte according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention;
fig. 4 is a graph of impedance test data of a dense solid electrolyte obtained by a method of rapidly sintering a solid electrolyte according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.
Detailed Description
The preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.
8YSZ nanopowder with a mass of 0.09g was put into a tabletting mold with a diameter of 5mm, slowly pressurized to 500MPa, and left to stand for about 30 seconds to obtain a sheet 6 with a thickness of 1 mm.
There is provided a rapid sintering apparatus as shown in fig. 1, which comprises a quartz glass cover 1, a quartz plate 2, carbon paper 3, electrodes 4 and a power supply 5, wherein the quartz glass cover 1 provides a closed space, the quartz plate 2 is fixedly mounted in the closed space, two ends of two carbon papers 3 spaced apart from each other are respectively fixedly mounted between the electrodes 4 and carried on the quartz plate 2, and the power supply 5 is connected with the electrodes 4 through cables outside the quartz glass cover 1 to supply current to the carbon paper 3.
The sheet 6 was sandwiched between the carbon papers 3, the power supply 5 was turned on, and the current was gradually increased to a temperature of about 2400 ℃ for 25 seconds, and the carbon paper was sintered at 2400 ℃ for 30 seconds to obtain a dense solid electrolyte.
As shown in fig. 2, the sintered solid electrolyte obtained by the method of rapidly sintering a solid electrolyte according to the present invention has a dense structure. As shown in FIG. 3, the method of rapidly sintering a solid electrolyte according to the present invention results in a dense solid electrolyteThe material is not broken due to too large a temperature rise and fall rate of sintering. As shown in fig. 4, the method of rapidly sintering a solid electrolyte according to the present invention resulted in a dense solid electrolyte having a resistance of about 1.8 ohms (impedance complex Z (ω) ═ Z)Re-jZImThe abscissa is a real part, the ordinate is an imaginary part, and the intersection of the data fitting and the abscissa is about 1.8), and can be used in a molten salt battery.
The above embodiments are merely preferred embodiments of the present invention, which are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention, and various changes may be made in the above embodiments of the present invention. All simple and equivalent changes and modifications made according to the claims and the content of the specification of the present application fall within the scope of the claims of the present patent application. The invention has not been described in detail in order to avoid obscuring the invention.