Synthesis and characterization of carbon nanotubes and activated carbon assisted sol-gel derived La0.6Sr0.4CoO3-δ material

Abstract

A pure perovskite-type oxide ceramic nanomaterial can be produced at a lower processing temperature than 1000 °C via sol-gel method. However, it is influenced by the nature of chemical agents such as chelating agent, surfactant and dispersant added during the synthesis process. Among them, dispersant is regarded as an important chemical agent as it can prevent the formation of hard agglomerated particles which is the main drawback of sol-gel method. In the present work, ceramic powder of lanthanum strontium cobaltite, La0.6Sr0.4CoO3-δ (LSCO) was prepared via sol-gel method with the aid of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and activated carbon (AC) as dispersant. The prepared powder was characterized by thermal gravimetric analyser (TGA), X-ray diffractometer (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) equipped with energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectrometer to evaluate its thermal decomposition, structural and microstructure properties, respectively. Thermal decomposition of the as-synthesized CNTs-based and AC-based powders completed at temperature 750 °C and pure perovskite phase of LSCO was formed at temperature 900 °C. Both CNTs-based and AC-based calcined powders consist of homogeneous and almost identical shape of particles. However, the CNTs-based calcined powder has higher agglomeration index value than the AC-based calcined powder as revealed in SEM images.