High-performance protonic ceramic fuel cells manufactured by direct laser 3D printing in minutes

Protonic ceramic fuel cells, one of the most promising energy conversion devices, suffer significant manufacturing challenges at both high and low temperatures. Compared with conventional methods, direct laser 3D printing (DL3DP) can avoid furnace firing, miniaturize the manufacturing space by one hundred times, and decrease the manufacturing time by 150 times down to minutes while only consuming 10% of processing electricity. The newly developed DL3DP method is characteristic of digital layer deposition (i.e., 40 precise and controllable thickness by combining micro extrusion and spray-coating) and selective laser processing (i.e., laser drying, firing, and machining), allowing the complete manufacturing of PCFCs without high-temperature and long-time furnace firing steps. The grain-boundary-free and surface-defect-free thin dense electrolytes, nanoporous electrodes, and well-bonded interfaces ensure high performance. Overall, this method can rapidly manufacture multilayer, multi-material, and multifunctional ceramic/metal composite structures for a wide range of next-generation energy conversion and storage devices, including fuel cells, electrolyzers, and solid-state batteries.