Proton Conductivity of Ni, Y Co-Doped BaZrO3

Dense sintered bodies of proton conducting BaZrO3 (BZ) and Y-doped BaZrO3 (BZ-Y) were obtained at 1600℃ for a short sintering time of 5 hours, by the addition of NiO as a sintering promotion agent. The relative density and grain growth of samples, Ni-doped BaZrO3 (BZ-N) and Ni, Y co-doped BaZrO3 (BZ-NY), were increased with increasing Ni addition. The sinterability of BZ-NY was greatly improved just to add only 0.6 mol% Ni and the relative density of this sample was more than 98%, in contrast to that of 60% at most for BZ-Y without Ni addition. Electrical conductivity of BZ-NY added Ni 1.0 mol%, BaZr0.91Ni0.01Y0.08O3-α, was more than 10-3 S.cm-2 at 900℃ in a wet 1% hydrogen atmosphere, which value was 10 times higher than that of BZ-Y. In addition, the kind of electrical conduction carrier and an ionic transport number were also examined by employing various concentration cells. It was found that the proton conduction was dominant for both BZ-N and BZ-NY samples, although BZ-NY showed scarcely oxygenion conduction approximately 10% in a high temperature range higher than 800℃. From these results, as mall amount of Ni addition found to be effective for improvement of both the sinterability and the electrical conductivity.