Properties of sol-gel prepared Ce 1− xSm xO 2− [formula omitted] solid electrolytes

Abstract

The structure, thermal expansion and ionic conductivity of solid electrolytes based on samarium doped cerium oxide, Ce 1− x Sm x O 2− x 2 ( x = 0−0.30), prepared by the sol-gel method were systematically investigated in a wide range of temperature of 200–650 °C. The uniformly small particle size of the sol-gel prepared materials allows sintering of the samples into highly dense ceramic pellets at significantly lower temperature 1400 °C compared to that of 1600 °C required for samples prepared by solid state techniques. The ionic conductivity increases with increasing samarium substitution and reaches a maximum for the composition Ce 0.80Sm 0.20O 1.9 (~5 × 10 −3 S cm −1 at 600 °C). Thermal expansion coefficients range between 8–10 × 10 −6 K −1.