Low temperature microwave sintering of yttrium and samarium co-doped ceria solid electrolytes for IT-SOFCs

Nanocrystalline co-doped ceria Ce0.8Sm0.2−xYxO2−δ solid electrolytes for intermediate-temperature solid oxide fuel cells (IT-SOFCs) were synthesized through sol–gel auto-combustion method. The prepared samples were sintered via microwave sintering at 1200 °C for 1 h. The X-ray diffraction analysis of co-doped ceria system reveals formation of the samples with a single-phase cubic fluorite structure. The lattice parameter values were calculated from X-ray diffraction patterns. The calculated crystallite sizes of all the samples were found to be in the range of 17 and 28 nm. Surface morphologies and elemental analysis of all the samples were carried out by using SEM and EDS analysis. The existence of chemical bonding in the samples was studied by FTIR spectroscopy. The presence of oxygen vacancies and evaluation of their concentration in the material was carried out using Raman spectroscopy analysis. Electrical properties of all the samples were analyzed by impedance spectroscopy. It was found that microwave sintered co-doped ceria sample Ce0.8Sm0.1Y0.1O2−δ exhibits the highest total ionic conductivity with minimum activation energy among all the compositions and conventional sintered sample. Therefore, it can be concluded that the microwave sintered Ce0.8Sm0.1Y0.1O2−δ sample may be useful as a promising electrolyte material for the IT-SOFCs.