Phase formation and microstructure analyses of La0.6Sr0.4CoO3-δ-BaCe0.54Zr0.36Y0.1O2.95 composite material prepared by solid state mixing method

Abstract

Abstract A composite material of La0.6Sr0.4CoO3-δ-BaCe0.54Zr0.36Y0.1O2.95 (LSC-BCZY) was prepared by mixing sol-gel derived LSC and BCZY powders in different weight percentage (wt%) ratio of LSC to BCZY (LSC:BCZY). The prepared composite powders were denoted as S1 (30:70), S2 (50:50) and S3 (70:30). The powders were characterized by an X-ray diffractometer (XRD), a Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area and porosity analyzer and a scanning electron microscope (SEM) equipped with an energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectrometer. XRD analysis confirmed that all of the powders were not pure enough due to the presence of impurity phases such as barium carbonate (BaCO3) and strontium carbonate (SrCO3) and unknown phases. S1 powder has the highest amount of impurity phases (81.19 %) and the largest BET surface area (4.82 m2 g−1). All of the powders formed typical clump-like network structure as proven by SEM analysis. EDX analysis revealed that the elemental compositions of La, Sr and Zr were deviated from their nominal mole fractions in all powders due to the Zr-rich clusters formation. The results indicate that the formation of pure and homogenous LSC-BCZY composite powder prepared by solid state mixing method requires further modification and improvement of the preparation method.