Grain-boundary conduction in solid oxide electrolyte

Grain-boundary conduction in the fluorite-structure solid oxide electrolytes such as acceptor-doped zirconia and ceria were reviewed. The siliceous impurity, even several hundreds ppm, affects the ionic conduction across grain boundary to a great extent. Various approaches to improve grain-boundary conduction in fluorite-structure oxide electrolytes have been investigated, which include (1) the scavenging of siliceous phase by the reaction with second phase, (2) the gathering of intergranular siliceous phase into a discrete configuration and (3) the dewetting of intergranular liquid phase by post-sintering heat treatmtent.