Synthesis and sintering behaviour of the lanthanum chromite doped with strontium and cobalt for SOFC interconnect applications

Abstract

Lanthanum Chromite has been the main candidate as interconnect material for high temperature fuel cell applications, SOFC. So all researches on the direction to clarify some aspects of this material continue to be an interesting contribution to understand and modify the behavior of the Lanthanum Chromite in use. The effort of this work is attaining doped Lanthanum Chromite by combustion synthesis, optimizing the parameters of the synthesis process and studying the influence of the conditioning powder process as milling, atmosphere and temperature of the sintering and also additives concentration on the final density, crystalline structures and expansion thermal behavior. The main characterization techniques used were BET determinations, Archimedes density method, dilatometry, scanning electronic microscopy, X ray diffraction and Rietveld method for refinements of the phases quantification. The homogeneous Lanthanum Chromite doped with Strontium and Cobalt with sintered densities around 97th% and thermal expansion coefficient compatible for SOFC applications (12x10-6°C) were attained with control of the adequate concentrations additives, synthesis conditions, the control of the atmosphere, time and temperature of the sintering process.