The properties of YSZ electrolyte sintering at 1300 °C

Abstract

The properties of yttria stabilized zirconia(YSZ) related to the sintering process were discussed. YSZ nano-powders about 40–100 nm as raw material, the sub-micrometer grain sizes such as 0.4–3 μm in YSZ were gotten by sintering process at 1300 °C, which was performed at 1000 °C for 2 h, then raised the temperature at the rate of 50 °C/h to 1400 °C, then decreased directly to 1300 °C in 30 minutes, finally at 1300 °C for 5–20 hours. The ratio of bigger grain size becomes larger as the holding time increasing at 1300 °C. The grains less than 1 μm are about 50%, eg, 43.2%, 52.2% and 51.1% related to 1300 °C holding 5 hours, 8 hours and 10 hours, respectively. As YSZ grain size became small, the electrical conductivities did not decrease, even increased, about 0.20 s/cm at 1000 °C. The reduced sintering temperature and time were benefited to co-fire with the electrodes in electrode-supported SOFCs.

Keywords

solid oxide fuel call(SOFC) / yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) / electrolyte / sub-micrometer grain / low temperature sintering process

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