Equimolar Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia and Samaria-Doped Ceria Solid Solutions

Compositions of (ZrO2)0.92(Y2O3)0.08 (zirconia: 8 mol % yttria—8YSZ) and (CeO2)0.8(Sm2O3)0.2 (ceria: 20 mol % samaria—SDC20) ceramic powders were prepared by attrition milling to form an equimolar powder mixture, followed by uniaxial and isostatic pressing. The pellets were quenched to room temperature from 1200 °C, 1300 °C, 1400 °C and 1500 °C to freeze the defects configuration attained at those temperatures. X-ray diffraction analyses, performed in all quenched pellets, show the evolution of the two (8YSZ and SDC20) cubic fluorite structural phases to a single phase at 1500 °C, identified by Rietveld analysis as a tetragonal phase. Impedance spectroscopy analyses were carried out in pellets either quenched or slowly cooled from 1500 °C. Heating the quenched pellets to 1000 °C decreases the electrical resistivity while it increases in the slowly cooled pellets; the decrease is ascribed to annealing of defects created by lattice micro-tensions during quenching while the increase to partial destabilization of the tetragonal phase.

Influence of mg doping on structural, optical and photocatalytic performances of ceria nanopowders

Nanosized Mg-doped ceria powders were obtained by self-propagating room temperature reaction without using surfactants or templates. X-ray diffraction analysis and field emission scanning microscopy results showed that the doped samples are solid solutions with fluorite-type structure and spherical morphology. Raman spectra revealed an increase in the amount of oxygen vacancies with the increase of Mg concentration. This increasing results in a narrowing of the bandgap of CeO2. The photocatalytic performances of the Mg-doped ceria solid solutions were evaluated by decomposing an organic dye, crystal violet under UV irradiation. The Mg-doped ceria solid solutions exhibit significantly better photocatalytic activity than the pure CeO2 and commercial TiO2. The higher first rate constant of the Mg-doped samples demonstrated that they are much more efficient than TiO2 and CeO2 under UV light. Mg2+ dopant ions and oxygen vacancies play a significant role in the enhancement of photocatalytic performances of the Mg-doped ceria.

Micro-solid state energy conversion membranes: influence of doping and strain on oxygen ion transport and near order for electrolytes

Electro-chemo-mechanics interactions in oxygen ion conductors are probed for variations of strain and extrinsic doping concentrations in free-standing micro-energy conversion membranes based on ceria solid solutions.