Solution-combustion synthesis of Bi1−x Ln x O1.5 (Ln = Y and La-Yb) oxide ion conductors

Cubic fluorite related $Bi_1-xLn_xO_1.5$ (Ln = Y and La–Yb) phases are synthesized by solutioncombustion method using glycine as the fuel. The cubic fluorite phase is stabilized with 25 mole% of rare earth cations. The lattice parameter of cubic phase increases linearly with size of the lanthanide ion. The synthesized powders are nano-metric in size and exhibit excellent compactability and reach 98% densification even on short period of sintering. The oxides with relatively larger cations Nd, Sm, Eu, Pr and Gd with 25 mole% composition transform to rhombohedral structure while others retain cubic upon sintering. All the phases show high oxide–ion conductivity and the values obtained are in good agreement with the reported values.