M?ssbauer studies of the phase composition and microstructure of the La1-xCaxFeO3-y system as related to the reactivity of surface and bulk oxygen

The phase composition and microstructure of samples of the La_1-xCa_xFeO_3-y system prepared via a ceramic route were characterized by M?ssbauer spectroscopy. In all cases, iron was found in the 3+ state. The ordering of anion vacancies in the samples with the composition in the range of 0.8 > x ≥ 0.4, which corresponds to a microheterogeneous solid solution, generates new distorted octahedral and fivefold/tetrahedral sites revealed by two typical sextets. The disordering of this solid solution and small (10-100 ?) sizes of domains with a perovskite, braunmillerite or Grenier phase structure caused the appearance of a superparamagnetic doublet, which grows with the Ca content up to x = 0.8 but disappears in the sample of pure braunmillerite. The appearance of Fe cations in a distorted coordination correlates with the increased activity of the samples with a microheterogeneous structure in the CO catalytic oxidation and with their reducibility by H₂. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.