Discovery of a New Crystal Structure Family of Oxide-Ion Conductors

Abstract: A team led by Prof. Masatomo Yashima and Assistant Prof. Kotaro Fujii of Department of Chemistry and Materials Science of Graduate School of Science and Engineering of Tokyo Institute of Technology (Japan), Prof. Toru Ishigaki and Associate Prof. Akinori Hoshikawa of Ibaraki University (Japan) and Dr. James R. Hester of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (Australia) has discovered a new structure family of oxide-ion (O^2-) conducting materials NdBaInO₄　(neodium barium indium oxide). The team successfully determined its crystal structure and visualized its oxide-ion diffusion pathway (Fig. 1). The discovery of this new structure family NdBaInO₄ can lead to the developments of new ionic conductors for better solid oxide fuel cells and oxygen concentrators, and of electronic materials.

The structure was analyzed using the neutron diffraction data measured with both diffractometers (1) belonging to Ibaraki prefecture, installed at J-PARC, and (2) belonging to ANSTO, and using synchrotron X-ray diffraction data measured at (3) SPring-8 and (4) the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) Photon Factory.

Figure 1: Refined crystal structure and oxide-ion diffusion pathway of NdBaInO₄, which consists of (i) A-O (Nd-O) unit and (ii) (A,A^' )BO₃ (= Nd_2/8Ba_6/8InO₃) perovskite unit. The oxide-ion (O^2-) conduction occurs in the A-O unit (Arrows in the figure).

Reference

Publication of this work:	Chemistry of Materials (American Chemical Society) as Communications, 2014, 26 (8), pp 2488-2491
DOI：	10.1021/cm500776x
Publication Date (Web):	March 21, 2014DOI
Title:	New perovskite-related structure family of oxide-ion conducting materials NdBaInO4
Authors:	Kotaro Fujii (Assistant Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology), Yuichi Esaki (Master course student, Tokyo Institute of Technology), Kazuki Omoto (Doctor course student, Tokyo Institute of Technology), Masatomo Yashima* (Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology), Akinori Hoshikawa (Associate Professor, Ibaraki University), Toru Ishigaki (Professor, Ibaraki University), and James R. Hester (Dr., Instrument Scientist, ANSTO) * Corresponding author

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