Relationship between transport properties and phase transformations in mixed-conducting oxides

To elucidate the relationship between transport properties and phase transformations in mixed-conducting oxides, Sr0.9Ca0.1Co0.89Fe0.11O3−δ (SCCFO) and SrCoO3−δ (SCO) were chosen as the model materials and have been investigated in detail. Oxygen permeation measurements verified that both oxides are well permeable to oxygen at elevated temperatures, e.g., at 900 °C during a cooling procedure, oxygen permeation rates as large as 1.5 and 2.0 mL/min/cm2 could be obtained with disk-shaped SCCFO and SCO membranes of thickness 1.5 mm, respectively. But when cooled to critical temperatures, the oxygen permeability of these kinds of oxides diminished sharply, which could be recovered by increasing the temperature again to certain values. Abrupt changes on electrical conductivity were also observed for both oxides around the same region of temperature as that of oxygen permeability. As indicated by high-temperature X-ray diffraction and thermal analysis, the SCCFO and SCO systems undergo phase transformation between a low-temperature orthorhombic brownmillerite structure (B) or a hexagonal 2H-type structure (H) and a high-temperature cubic perovskite structure (C), respectively. The present results suggest the observed abrupt changes in transport properties versus temperature are attributed to such phase transformation, which may be directly associated with the order–disorder transition of oxygen vacancies. Moreover, compared to the B/C transformation that mainly involves an order–disorder transition on the oxygen sublattice, the H/C one necessarily also involves the cooperative long-range reorganization on the cation sublattice. Therefore it occurs at a higher temperature and absorbs more heat quantity than those of B/C transformation.