Study on electrical conductivity and phase transition in singly doped BIPBVOX (Bi2V1?xPbxO5.5?x/2) solid electrolyte

Samples of bismuth lead vanadium oxide (BIPBVOX) (Bi₂V_1–xPb_xO_5.5–x/2) singly substituted system in the composition range 0.05 ≤ x ≤ 0.20 were prepared by sol–gel synthesis route. Structural investigations were carried out by using a combination of differential thermal analysis (DTA) and powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) technique. Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy analysis (EDXA) of doped samples was carried out to predict the sample purity and doping concentration. Transitions, α?β, β?γ and γ′?γ were detected by XRD, DTA and variation in the Arrhenius plots of conductivity. The ionic conductivity was measured by AC impedance spectroscopy. The solid solutions with composition x ≤ 0.07 undergo α?β phase transition, at 329 °C and β?γ phase transition at 419 °C. The highly conducting γ′-phase was effectively stabilized at room temperature for compositions with x ≥ 0.17 whose thermal stability increases with Pb content. At 300 °C, the highest value of conductivity 6.234 × 10^?5 S cm^?1 was obtained for composition x = 0.15 and at 600 °C the highest value of conductivity 0.65 S cm^?1 is observed for x = 0.17. AC impedance plots reveal that the conductivity is mainly due to the grain contribution to oxide ion conductivity.