Novel Protonic Conductive Silicates Produced by the Sol-Gel Method

Materials which display ionic conductivity were produced by the sol-gel and microemulsion-gel methods. The charging and discharging characteristics were investigated and it was found that a single ionic species was responsible for the conduction, the ionic species being residual protons from the initial component mixture. The complex impedence of various samples was measured and the ionic conductivities ranged in value from 9 * 10^-8 to 1 * 10^-5 ohm^-1cm^-1. An Arrhemius plot for a microemulsion-gel revealed that the energy of activation was 0.15 eV.