A group of South Korean scientists has developed a protonic ceramic fuel cell (PCFC) that greatly improves both performance and scalability, helping to move forward the commercialization of next-generation eco-friendly power generation systems, researchers here said Tuesday.

The joint teams, led by Shin Dong-wook of Hanyang University and Lee Jong-ho of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology, claimed that they satisfied high performance and cost efficiency aspects of next generation fuel cells.

Over the past decades, PCFCs have been praised as a next-generation technology. However, PCFCs needed to overcome limitations on performance due to the refractory nature of proton-conducting ceramic electrolytes and low chemical stability.

The researchers said they have achieved the best value reported for PCFCs through an anode-assisted facile densification of a proton-conducting electrolyte on a structurally and compositionally uniform anode support.

"Since all of the utilized fabrication processes were cost-effective, consistent and readily scalable, the advances fulfill the requirements of high performance, scalability and cost-efficiency for achieving commercial feasibility of PCFCs," the researchers said in their report.

Their findings were published in the latest edition of the journal, Nature Energy.