Nanostructured and fine grained ceria ceramics as heavily doped with yttria (CYO) or with samaria (CSO) are considered as promising electrolyte materials for solid oxide fuel-cells, due to its high oxygen conductivity. In previous works, the authors studied the electrical properties of nanostructured CYO and CSO as a function of grain size using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). A remarkable enhancement in the total ionic conductivity of about one order of magnitude was found in the nano- and fine grained- materials, compared with the intrinsic bulk conductivity of conventional microcrystalline ceramics attributing this effect to the predominance of grain boundary conduction in nanomaterials, coupled with an increase in the grain boundary ionic diffusivity with decreasing grain size. The aim of this work was to consider the structural characterization of these nanomaterials mainly with FE-SEM and HR-TEM enabling to evaluate the films structure, the variation of grain size, the grain boundary density and the defects evolution with the calcination temperature.

Nanostructured or fine grained doped ceria ceramics

248th National Meeting (2014)

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