Synthesis of nanocrystalline materials for SOFC applications by acrylamide polymerisation

Ultrafine powders with applicability in solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) were prepared by a novel method based on a polyacrylamide gel-combustion process: Zr0.84Y0.16O1.92 (8YSZ), Ce0.8Gd0.2O1.9 (CGO), La0.9Sr0.1Ga0.8Mg0.2O2.85 (LSGM), La2Mo2O9, La0.8Sr0.2CoO3−δ (LSC) and La0.8Sr0.2FeO3−δ (LSF). Synthesized powders present desirable characteristics for powder consolidation and sintering, including nanometric crystal size (10–40 nm), narrow size distribution and the possibility of aggregate disagglomeration via soft ball milling. A classical screen-printing method is presented as a novel thin dense layer deposition technique. First results on deposition of quasi-full-density thin films of 8YSZ (around 5 μm thick) were obtained at a sintering temperature of 1300 °C with sintering times of 10 h in air.