A simple and general route for the preparation of pure and high crystalline nanosized lanthanide silicates with the structure of apatite at low temperature

Rare earth silicates with the structure of apatite are attracting considerable interest since they show oxygen ion conductivities higher than that of yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) at moderate temperature. Based on the hydrothermal synthesis we presented a simple one step process for the direct preparation of the pure and the high crystalline nanosized rare earth silicates with the structure of apatite under a mild condition (230 °C). Since the preparation of the high crystalline silicon based rare earth apatites is performed at high temperature previously and accompanied by subsequent process of grinding, results of this work provide a promising alternative of the existing methodology. Furthermore, due to the relatively low temperature of the preparation of these materials, high doping of monovalent cation can be done, which was not achieved before.