Synthesis of praseodymium doped cerium oxides by the polymerization-combustion method for application as anodic component in SOFC devices

This work reports the synthesis and the characterization of six oxides; it is based on Ce_1-xPr_xO₂ (x=0.0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8 and 1.0) system, which is obtained by the polymerization- combustion technique for potential applications on design of advanced electrodic components, for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC). Initially the solid precursors are characterized by infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and thermal analysis (TGA-DTA), allowing to determine the formation of prevalent citrate species and the optimal temperature for the consolidation of the desired crystalline phases. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) and the transmission electron microscopy analysis (TEM) are performed over calcined samples which provided information about the formation of a fluorite phase with grain distribution, surface, textural and morphological properties consistent with the nanometric obtaining crystallites (30nm), it is oriented along the (1 1 1) facet, with d spacings of 0.31nm for the main diffraction signal. These results indicate the effectiveness of the proposed synthesis method for potential applications in the design of advanced anodic materials for solid oxide fuel cells.