Apatite-type lanthanum silicate (LSO) electrolyte is one of the most promising candidates for developing intermediate-temperature solid oxide electrolysis cells and solid oxide full cells (IT-SOECs and SOFCs) due to its stability and low activation energy. However, the LSO electrolyte still suffers from unsatisfied ionic conductivity and low relative density. Herein, a new co-doped method is reported to prepare highly purified polycrystalline powders of Mg-Mo co-doped LSO (Mg/Mo-LSO) electrolytes with high excellent densification properties and improved ionic conductivity. Introducing the Mo6+ and Mg2+ ions into the LSO structure can increase the number of interstitial oxide ions and improve the degree of densification at lower sintering temperatures, more importantly, expand the migration channel of oxide ions to enhance the ionic conductivity. As a result, the relative density of the fabricated Mo/Mg-LSO electrolytes pellets could achieve more than 98 % of the theoretical density after sintering at 1500 °C for 4 h with a grain size of about 1-3 μm and the EIS results showed the ionic conductivity increased from 0.782 mS ⋅ cm-1 for the pristine LSO to 33.94 mS ⋅ cm-1 for the doped sample La9.5 Si5.45 Mg0.3 Mo0.25 O26+δ at 800 °C. In addition, the effect of different Mo6+ doping contents was investigated systematically, in which La9.5 Si5.45 Mg0.3 Mo0.25 O26+δ possessed the highest ionic conductivity and relative density. The proposed Mo/Mg co-doped method in this work is one step forward in developing apatite-structured electrolytes offering excellent potential to address the common issues associated with the fabrication of dense, highly conductive, and thermochemically stable electrolytes for solid oxide electrolysers and fuel cells.
Keywords: LSO apatites; densification; electrolytes; ionic conductivity; lanthanum silicates.
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