Low Temperature Synthesis and Properties of Gadolinium-Doped Cerium Oxide Nanoparticles

Gadolinium-doped cerium oxide (GDC) is an attractive ceramic material for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) both as the electrolyte or in composite electrodes. The Ni/GDC cermet can be tuned as a catalytic layer, added to the conventional Ni/yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ), for the internal steam reforming of different fuels.

Such an anode allows the SOFC to operate with hydrocarbon fuels by internal reforming. GDC exhibits high oxygen ion conductivity at a wide range of temperatures and displays a high resistance to carbon deposition. However, an inconvenience of ceria-based oxides is the high sintering temperature needed to obtain a fully dense ceramic body, which can result in undesired reactions with YSZ.

In this study, a green chemistry route for the synthesis of 10 mol% GDC nanoparticles is proposed. Such a low temperature synthesis provides control over particle size and sinterability of the material. The aqueous precipitation method starts from the nitrates of both cerium and gadolinium and uses excess hexamethylenetetramine (HMT) to produce crystalline GDC at 80 ºC.

As-produced powders were found to be GDC crystalline fluorite-type structure, with crystallite size ≤ 10 nm. Thermalgravimetric analysis show a small mass loss and dilatometry profiles show a total retraction of ˃ 20% up to 1400 °C. The electrical properties of the material were studied by impedance spectroscopy measurements of sintered samples in a controlled atmosphere.

The samples sintered for 2 hours at 1400 °C exhibited electrical conductivity comparable to previously reported data for GDC.