Synthesis and Electrical Transport Property of Sr and Cu-Doped LaFeO₃-Based Cathode Material for IT-SOFC

In order to accelerate the commercialization of SOFCs technology, the key is the development of high performance cathode materials operated at intermediate temperature. Sr and Cu doped rare earth oxide La1-xSrxFe1-yCu.yO3-δ (x=0.1, 0.3 ; y=0.1, 0.2, denoted as LSFCu-11, LSFCu-31 and LSFCu-32 ) were synthesized by solid state reaction method (SSR). The formation process, phase structure and microstructure of the synthesized samples were characterized using TG/DSC, XRD and SEM. The thermal expansion coefficients (TEC) of the samples were analyzed by thermal dilatometry. The electrical conductivities of the samples were measured with DC four-terminal method from 25 to 950 °C. The results indicate that the samples exhibit a single phase with orthorhombic and hexagonal perovskite structure after sintered at 1200 °C for 4h. The electrical conductivity of the samples increases with temperature up to a maximum value, and then decreases gradually. The small polaron hopping is regarded as the conducting mechanism for synthesized samples at T 550 °C. The negative temperature dependence occurring at higher temperature is due to the creation of oxygen vacancies for charge balance. LSFCu-32 has higher mixed conductivity (> 100 S·cm-1) at intermediate temperature and can meet the demand of cathode material for IT-SOFC. In addition, the average TECs of LSFCu-11, LSFCu-31 and LSFCu-32 are 1.22 × 10-6 K-1 , 1.30 × 10-6 K-1 and 1.34 × 10-6 K-1 respectively.