The Effect of the Multi-doping Strategy on Stabilization of the Cubic δ-phase in the Bi2O3-based Solid Electrolyte Systems in Terms of the SOFC Applications

Abstract

In this study, the effects of multi-doping strategy on phase stabilization and electrical conductivity for the doped Bi 2 O 3 system were investigated. All solid mixtures were created by solid state reactions according to a certain stoichiometric ratio in atmospheric conditions. The structural, electrical, thermal and surface characterizations of the created samples were performed by x-ray diffraction method (XRD), four point-probe technique (4-PPT), differential thermal analysis/thermo gravimetric analysis (DTA/TGA) and scanning electron microscope (SEM), respectively. From XRD results, it was seen that the fcc δ-phase could be stabilized by using only 1:1:1:2 or 2:2:2:1 dopant content ratio (in here, “1:” is corresponds to” 5%” mole). The other compounds prepared out of this ratios were mixed phase because of the containing both α-phase peaks and δ-phase peaks on their XRD pattern. When the all samples were compared in terms of electrical conductivity at 750 °C, it was observed that the fcc δ-phase stabilized samples exhibited higher conductivity than that of other compounds as expected. The highest electrical conductivity was for the sample, dopant content ratios of which are 1: 1: 1: 2, with 0.014 S.cm -1 at 750 °C and also it had the lowest activation energy (0.51 eV) among all samples. On the other hand, according to the thermal analysis results, it was concluded that phase transition occurred only on the DTA curve of the sample given with dopant content ratios 1:1:1:1 due to presence of endothermic peak on its DTA curve at 729°C during the heating process. Also, for this sample, it was clearly predicted from the electrical conductivity graphs depending on temperature that the phase transition occurred at just that temperature (729 °C) due to the sudden increase in conductivity by indicating phase transition from the α-phase to the cubic δ-phase. The SEM analysis pointed out that grain size decreased as total dopant ratio increased and also the grain boundary changed sharply with the increase in the total dopant ratio.