Articles
  • Structural modification of electrode microstructures in solid oxide fuel cells using high-energy proton irradiation
  • Young-Sung Yooa, Seung-Muk Baeb, Yong-Hoon Kimb, Young-Hwan Kimb and Jin-Ha Hwangb,*
  • a Green Growth Technology Laboratory, Korea Electric Power Research Institute, 65 Munji-Ro, Yuseong-Gu, Daejeon 305-760, Korea b Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Hongik University, 72-1 Sangsu-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul 121-791, Korea
Abstract
High energy proton beams can be introduced into YSZ/NiO mixtures. In this study, digitized image processing was used to analyze the corresponding microstructure in YSZ/NiO mixtures before and after proton irradiation. High-contrast and highresolution back-scattered electron images were processed into binary images using a "threshold" function and noise filtering. Quantitative parameters including volume fraction, size distribution, and interconnectivity were estimated. The results indicated that the energetic protons induced a microstructural change in the YSZ/NiO mixtures. Furthermore, the volume fraction and interconnectivity after proton irradiation was increased compared to the initial un-irradiated state.

Keywords: Proton Irradiation, Solid Oxide Fuel Cells, Microstructure, Digital Image Processing, Interconnectivity.

This Article

  • 2011; 12(6): 688-690

    Published on Dec 31, 2011