Study on stability and electrical performance of yttrium and bismuth co-doped BaCeO3

Yttrium and bismuth co-doped BaCeO3 (BaCe0.8-xY0.2BixO3-delta, x=0, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, abbreviated as B0, B10, B30, B50, respectively) powders were successfully synthesized by the citrate-EDTA auto-ignition method and dense ceramics were also obtained. The investigations were mainly focused on the chemical stability and electrical performance of the bismuth doped BaCe0.8Y0.2O3-delta. The phase and thermal analysis of the powders demonstrated that the appropriate amount of Bi dopant can well stabilize BaCeO3 (e.g. Bi=0.3 and 0.5) and prevented them from boiling water damage, whilst the stability in CO2-containing atmosphere degraded with the increase of the bismuth content. It was demonstrated that in wet air, the conductivities of B30 and B50 reached as high as 0.20 S/cm and 0.71 S/cm at 700 degrees C, respectively. And both were one order of magnitude higher than that of B0. An electron conduction mechanism for the bismuth doped BaCeO3 specimen was proposed. Yttrium and bismuth co-doping exerted influences on both the chemical stability and electrical performance. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd and Techna Group S.r.l. All rights reserved.