Shrinkage Behavior, Thermal expansion Behavior, and Electrical Conductivity Study of Samarium Doped Ceria Electrolytes

Abstract

In the present study, sintering behavior and electrical conductivity of Sm doped Ceria (SDC) and multi-doped (Sm/Pr/Li) Ceria electrolytes synthesized by microwave-assisted co-precipitation method is studied. SDC green pellet displayed a unimodal shrinkage behavior with a linear shrinkage of 15.67% along with a slight dedensification above 1350?. An increase in electrical conductivity with an increase in sintering temperature from 1200 to 1300 ? was observed. Further increasing the sintering temperature (1400 and 1500 ?) electrical conductivity decreased, which could be due to dedensification (as observed in sintering behavior). At 600 ?, the electrical conductivity of SDC1200 is around 1.34 × 10- 2 S cm-1. The sintering temperature is drastically decreased to 850 ? from 1200 ? with the addition of Li, and the electrical conductivity is increased with the addition of Pr to SDC electrolytes. At 600 ?, the electrical conductivity of 3Li-SPDC850 sintered at 850 ? is 1.44 × 10-2 S cm-1. The thermal expansion coefficient (TEC) of the electrolytes studied were in the range of 12.7 × 10-6 to 17.6 × 10-6 K-1. © 2021 Electrochemical Society Inc.. All rights reserved.