BIFEVOX Composites: Manufacture and Characterization

Design of composites is a way to improve the quality of solid electrolytes. By mechanically mixing and annealing substituted bismuth vanadate with nanosized aluminum, bismuth, and zirconium binary oxides, we obtained heterogeneous materials Bi₄V_1.7Fe_0.3O_{11 – δ}/xAl₂O₃, Bi₄V_1.7Fe_0.3O_{11 – δ}/xBi₂O₃, and Bi₄V_1.7Fe_0.3O_{11 – δ}/xYSZ. The investigation tools were X-ray powder diffraction and electron microscopy with energy-dispersive microanalysis. The composition of materials was studied, the non-interaction of components was elucidated in the aluminum oxide and zirconium oxide composite series, and a nonuniform distribution of nanopowder particles across the surfaces and cleaves of sinters was discovered. The bismuth atoms from bismuth oxide were shown to be capable of incorporating into the Bi₄Fe_0.3V_1.7O_{11 – δ} structure. The charge transport characteristics of the materials were studied by impedance spectroscopy. No changes were observed in logσ–10³/T trends in composites with various binary oxides and various oxide contents. An increase in binary oxide concentration was shown to give rise to an insignificant decay in electrical conductivity.