Lanthanide tungstates and molybdates are promising materials for hydrogen separation membranes due to their high protonic conductivity. A promising approach to fabricating ceramics based on these materials is radiation thermal sintering. The current work aims at studying the effect of radiation thermal sintering on the structural morphological and transport properties of (Nd,Ln)5.5(W,Mo)O11.25-δ as promising materials for hydrogen separation membranes. The defect fluorite structure was shown to be preserved during radiation thermal sintering at 1100 °C. The presence of protons in hydrated samples was confirmed by TGA. According to four-electrode studies and the isotope exchange of oxygen with C18O2, the samples demonstrate a high proton conductivity and oxygen mobility. Residual porosity (up to 29%) observed for these samples can be dealt with during membrane preparation by adding sintering aids and/or metal alloys nanoparticles. Hence, sintering by e-beams can be applied to the manufacturing of hydrogen separation membranes based on these materials.
Keywords: e-beam sintering; lanthanide tungstates; oxygen mobility; protonic conductivity.