4.1. Perovskites
Perovskite-like oxides are widely used materials for SOFC and permselective membranes components due to their typically high electronic or mixed ionic-electronic conductivity [
54,
86,
87,
89,
91,
99,
116,
132,
133,
134]. The general oxygen transport mechanism in perovskites is vacancy mechanism (Figures 2 (a) and 7). Hence, increasing the oxygen vacancy content can increase the oxygen mobility, which can be achieved by doping A- and B-sites with various aliovalent cations [
89,
135]. The creation of an A-site deficiency also allows for an increase in the oxygen vacancy content, however, it may result in a decrease in their mobility due to their binding to defect complexes such as
[
89]. For some oxides with distorted perovskite structure, it was demonstrated that significant deviation from oxygen stoichiometry in such materials is accompanied by nanostructuring, at the same time, grain boundaries become fast channel of oxygen transport, while oxygen transport within the grain bulk is slower (
Figure 8) [
76,
77,
78,
79,
80,
81].
Conventional strontium doped lanthanum manganite (LSM) materials have poor oxygen mobility (
Figure 9), which limits their application as air electrodes in SOFCs with decreased operating temperatures that are being intensively developed [
75,
136,
137]. However, they can be successfully used in the composite electrodes in combination with different ionic conductors [
138,
139,
140]. Lanthanum ferrite-nickelates (LNF), being predominantly electronic conductors, demonstrate low oxygen diffusion and, as a result, oxygen permeation properties [
141,
142,
143,
144]. Nevertheless, LaNi
0.6Fe
0.4O
3, as the most stable in the series, found wide application in SOCs due to its superior conductivity, low thermal expansion coefficient value, and tolerance to chromium poisoning [
145]. It is also successfully used in different composite electrodes for intermediate temperature SOFCs [
146,
147,
148,
149], and as a cathode contact materials [
150,
151]. Materials with mixed oxygen ion and electron conductivity (MIECs), such as Sr doped lanthanum ferrites-nickelates/cobaltites (LSFN, LSFC) possess much higher oxygen mobility (
Figure 9) enabling the O reduction reaction (ORR) along both triple and double phase boundaries, thus improving cathode performance, as well as oxygen permeation fluxes across oxygen separation membranes [
75,
86,
87,
136,
137,
152]. Pr nickelates-cobaltites (PNC) stable to carbonation and interaction with electrolyte, which is well-known issue for Sr-doped perovskites with La occupying A-site, possess total conductivity and oxygen diffusivity properties comparable or even exceeding those for LSFN and LSFC [
54,
62,
75,
132,
153].
Mixed protonic-electronic or triple (H
+/O
2–/e
–) conductive perovskites and their composites based on the compositions such as doped Sr/Ba cerates/zirconates are the materials for proton-conducting SOFCs (H-SOFC), including high-performance electrodes with triple-conducting behavior [
54,
68,
70,
131,
154,
155,
156,
157,
158,
159,
160,
161], as well as hydrogen separation membranes [
54,
91,
99,
100]. Protons in such perovskites are formed due to the hydrogenation or hydration of oxygen vacancies (Equations (28)-(32)). Therefore, one of the factors providing fine protonic transport properties is a high content of oxygen vacancies. Typical values of the hydrogen tracer diffusion coefficient for doped Ba and Sr cerates are ~10
–6 – 10
–5 cm
2 s
–1 at 700 °C (
Figure 10) [
156,
162,
163,
164].
4.2. Fluorites, bixbyites and rhombohedral phases
Recent research efforts [
157,
158,
159,
160,
165] have made it possible to increase the grain-boundary conductivity of proton-conducting zirconates with a perovskite structure. At the same time, there is another class of proton-conducting materials, with a fluorite-like structure, which have comparable total and bulk conductivities, whereas the contribution of grain-boundary conductivity is extremely small or zero. This class of materials comprises the following disordered pyrochlores and fluorites based on La compounds:
Ca-doped La
2Zr
2O
7 ((La
2–xCa
x)Zr
2O
7–δ) pyrochlore, a proton conductor in the range of 200–600 °C [
166,
167];
La
2Ce
2O
7 (50% CeO
2 + 50% La
2O
3) fluorite, a proton conductor below 450 °C and an oxygen ion conductor at high temperatures [
168]; and
fluorite-like La
6–xWO
12–δ (
x = 0 – 0.8), a proton conductor with conductivity up to (3–7)×10
–3 S cm
–1, at 800 °C and 1 Pa, depending on
x [
169,
170].
Ln tungstates were revealed to have mixed ionic–electronic conductivity with a potential ability of using in solid oxide fuel cells and proton conducting membranes [
169,
170]. La
6–xWO
12–δ (
x = 0.2–1) solid solutions based on lanthanum tungstate La
6WO
12 were of particular interest, since they were found to have the highest proton conductivity among the few non-perovskite proton-conducting materials [
169,
170,
171,
172,
173,
174]. La
6–xWO
12–δ (
x = 0.2–1) tungstates can be used as potential solid electrolytes for solid-state fuel cells and proton-conducting membranes for hydrogen separation. An important advantage of lanthanum tungstates over perovskites - acceptor-doped barium and strontium cerates BaCeO
3, SrCeO
3 - is the absence of interaction with CO
2 and SO
xwith the formation of carbonates and compounds containing sulphur [
171].
Among single-phase materials La
6–xWO
12–δ(
x = 0–0.8), the highest proton conductivity was offered by the La
6–xWO
12–δ (
x = 0.4, 0.5) materials, but subsequent investigation showed that their proton conductivity dropped rather sharply during prolonged holding in wet H
2 at 1100 °C, and the most stable materials were La
6–xWO
12–δ with
x = 0.6 and 0.7 [
170]. According to Partin
et al. [
175], who prepared samples by standard solid-state reactions, the most stable solid solution was La
6–xWO
12–δ with
x = 0.4. It seems likely that the problem of low grain-boundary conductivity arises as well in the case of proton-conducting lanthanum tungstates. For example, in studies of the conductivity of La
6–xWO
12–δ (
x = 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0) [
175], comparison of impedance plots before and after holding in a wet atmosphere showed a marked increase in grain-boundary resistance at 800 – 900 °C. By contrast, in the range 300 – 500 °C the grain-boundary resistance decreased with increasing partial pressure in various atmospheres [
170,
175]. Since W
6+ and Mo
6+ are similar in ionic radius, Savvin
et al. [
176,
177] expected to obtain proton-conducting materials based on the
Ln6MoO
12 (
Ln = La – Lu) molybdates. Indeed, they succeed to extend the class of proton-conducting fluorite-like materials by synthesizing new mixed electron–proton-conducting molybdates: La
5.8Zr
0.2MoO
12.1 and
Ln5.4Zr
0.6MoO
12.3 (
Ln = Nd, Sm, Dy) [
176,
177]. Doping with zirconium ensured higher stability of the molybdates to reduction, but as in the case of tungstates [
169], Zr was found to be a donor dopant, reducing the proton conductivity of the materials [
176]. Among the proton-conducting
Ln6–xZr
xMoO
12+δ (
Ln = La, Nd, Sm, Gd, Dy, Ho;
x = 0.2 – 0.6) molybdates, most of which have a fluorite structure (sp. gr.
), the highest conductivity was offered by a rhombohedral La
5.8Zr
0.2MoO
12.1 phase (sp. gr.
), which exhibited total conductivity of 2.5×10
–5 S cm
–1 at 500 °C (3×10
–4 S cm
–1 at 800 °C) in wet air [
177]. It should be noted that solid solutions based on rare-earth tungstates and molybdates are predominantly oxygen ion conductors in dry air at low temperatures, and predominantly proton conductors in wet air [
170,
177]. At high temperatures (above 600 °C) in an oxidizing atmosphere (air), charge transport is dominated by
p-type conduction, whereas under reducing conditions
n-type conduction prevails [
170,
177]. Doping with Ti, Zr, and Nb on the Mo site and with fluorine on the oxygen site was studied using La
5.4MoO
11.1 as an example, but essentially all of the dopants reduced ionic conductivity of the material [
176,
178,
179]. A similar situation was observed in La
6–xWO
12–δ (
x = 0.4, 0.5) lanthanum tungstates [
169,
170,
171,
172,
173,
174]. Due to the fact that cation doping [
176,
178,
179,
180] decreased the proton conductivity of RE molybdates, the main attention was paid to the study of pure solid solutions based on
Ln6MoO
12:
Ln6−xMoO
12−δ (
Ln = La, Nd, Sm, Gd–Lu) [
127,
181,
182,
183,
184,
185,
186,
187,
188,
189,
190,
191]. It is known that, to a large extent, the proton conductivity depends on the crystal structure type, and, in this regard, the rich polymorphism of solid solutions based on RE molybdates and tungstates
Ln6MO
12 (M = Mo, W) should be noted [
178,
180,
182,
184,
185,
188,
189,
191]. In the series
Ln6−xMoO
12−δ (
Ln = La, Nd, Sm, Gd–Lu), depending on the temperature and lanthanide ionic radii, various structural types are realized: rhombohedral
, fluorite
, and bixbyite
. Proton conductivity was found in various solid solutions based on RE molybdates and it was shown that it reached maximal values for lanthanum molybdates La
6−xMoO
12−δ (
x = 0.5, 0.6) with a complex rhombohedral structure R1 [
181,
182,
190].
Stability of solid solutions based on REE molybdates as well as of lanthanum tungstates La
6–xWO
12–δ (
x = 0 – 0.8) solid solutions, known proton conductors [
169,
170,
171,
172,
173,
174], is an important issue in the perspective of their practical application. As a rule, it is the process of reduction of variable valence cations in solid solutions, which results in a grain-boundary contribution growth, limiting conductivity of the materials in wet atmospheres at high temperatures. The stability of the Ho
5.4Zr
0.6MoO
12.3 fluorite structure and the La
6−xMoO
12−δ (
x = 0.5) fluorite-like rhombohedral structure R1 in extremely dry conditions under dynamic vacuum was investigated by
in situ variable temperature neutron diffraction (NDD) between 800 and 1400 °C [
184]. The NDD results unambiguously demonstrated the dimensional stability of the fluorite-like rhombohedral La
6−xMoO
12−δ (
x = 0.5) as compared to the Ho
5.4Zr
0.6MoO
12.3 fluorite in the heating - cooling cycle. According to the NDD, heating to 1100°C followed by vacuum cooling does not change the
c cell parameter of rhombohedral La
6−xMoO
12−δ (
x = 0.5), whereas its
a parameter decreases by 0.13%. It was also found that the
a cell parameter of cubic fluorite Ho
5.4Zr
0.6MoO
12.3 decreases by ~2.6%. It may be result of partial reduction of Mo
6+ to Mo
+5 in RE molybdates. It seems likely that the same cause, i.e., the decrease in cubic cell parameter as a result of partial reduction of W
6+ to W
+5, accompanied by disordering on the La/W sites, and subsequent formation of a denser atomic packing in the La
6-xWO
12-δ (
x = 0.4, 0.6, 0.8) lanthanum tungstates, underlies their relatively low stability [
175,
177,
192,
193,
194]. We believe that the loss of dimensional stability under reducing conditions in the
Ln6MO
12 (M = Mo, W) - based solid solutions, which results in a grain-boundary contribution, limiting their conductivity in wet atmospheres, is due to partial reduction of Mo
6+ and W
6+ in the rare-earth molybdates and tungstates, respectively [
184].
Follow-up study of the structure of La-containing molybdates La6−xMoO12−δ (x = 0.5, 0.6) shown that they have a new structure type based on rhombohedral cell, which has been discussed in series of papers [178,182,184,185,188,189,191]. Along with main peaks of [184] or [188] structure, additional lines present. These are superstructure lines typical of complex crystallographic cells whose parameters are increased by seven (R1) or five (R2)) times according to López-Vergara et al.[188]. A. López-Vergara et al. [182] reported that, depending on the cooling rate, the La6−xMoO12−δ (x = 0.6) solid solution can be obtained either in the form of a complex rhombohedral modification R1 (slow cooling) or in the form of fluorite (quenching), which agrees with the high-temperature experiment in vacuum for La6−xMoO12−δ (x = 0.5) [184]. It also turned out that R1 phase La6−xMoO12−δ (x = 0.6) has better oxygen-ion and proton conductivity than that of fluorite [182,188]. The decrease in the lanthanum concentration led to decrease in the rhombohedral distortion degree and to the decrease in the contribution of proton conductivity in the series La6−xMoO12−δ (x = 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 1) [190]. The proton conductivity for the optimal composition of La6−xMoO12−δ (x = 0.5) was ~5×10–5 S cm–1 at 500 °C in wet air, while for La6−xMoO12−δ (x = 1) ~9×10–6 S cm–1 (Figure 11 (a)) [30].
A tendency towards a decrease in the proton conductivity contribution for the rare-earth (RE) molybdates
Ln6−xMoO
12−δ (
Ln = La-Yb) series has been established. For heavy RE molybdates, the conditions for the synthesis of new proton conductors with a bixbyite structure (
Figure 11 (b)) were found for the first time [
181,
183,
185,
187,
191], and the bixbyite structure type was first presented in the ICDD PDF crystallographic database (Er
6MoO
12−δ (No. I11624) and Tm
6MoO
12-δ δ (No. I11626)). It was found that with decreasing of the
Ln2O
3 content by 1.8 mol.%, fluorites
Ln5.5MoO
11.25−δ (
Ln = Er, Tm) are formed under the same conditions (
Figure 11 (c)) [
191].
Fluorites and bixbyites turned out to be mixed electron-oxygen conductors in dry air and electron-proton conductors in wet air, while the dominant ionic contribution maintains up to 550–600 °С [
127,
181,
185]. In wet air Er and Tm fluorites and bixbyites had a close total conductivity of ~2×10
–6 S cm
–1 at 500 °C, but at 200 °C, bixbyites performed better than that of fluorites. The using of the isotope exchange with С
18O
2 made it possible to confirm the high mobility of oxygen in these compounds in air, starting from 200 °С (
Figure 12) [
191]. A high or at least intermediate oxygen mobility was demonstrated for other fluorites and bixbyites (in some cases due to defect features such as grain boundaries effect resulting in a fast oxygen diffusion along grain boundaries (2D diffusion)), while rhombohedral phases possess lower oxygen mobility (
Figure 12) [
54,
62,
127,
185,
191,
195].
It is of interest to note that the existence of compounds and solid solutions with close composition, differing by only a few mole percent, but having different structure, is typical for the L
n2O
3–Mo(W)O
3 (L
n = La, Nd, Pr, Sm) systems [
196,
197,
198]. For example, in the Pr
2O
3 – MoO
3 and Nd
2O
3-MoO
3 systems at 1000 °C, the compounds with
Ln2O
3:MoO
3 (
Ln = Pr, Nd) molar ratios of 5: 6 and 7: 8 differ in composition by just ~3 mol.% [
196]. According to Chambrier
et al. [
197,
198], cubic solid solutions based on La
10W
2O
21 free of La
2O
3 and La
6W
2O
15 impurities exist up to ~1700 °С in a narrow composition range, 26–30 mol% WO
3, and La
10W
2O
21 exact composition is 28.6 mol %WO
3+71.4 mol% La
2O
3. La
6WO
12 contains 25 mol% WO
3. Thus, in the Ln
2O
3–WO
3 system, La
6WO
12 and La
10W
2O
21 differ in composition by just 3.6 mol% WO
3.
Doped ceria materials being typically pure ionic conductors in air and MIECs in reducing atmospheres are generally used as SOFC electrolytes or components of composites for SOFC electrodes and oxygen separation membranes [
33,
35,
38,
52,
53,
62,
75,
91,
94,
199]. For using ceria as electrode or membrane material itself, the electronic component of conductivity should be increased. This can be achieved by doping with cations possessing redox activity such as Pr
4+/3+ and Tb
4+/3+ [
94,
199]. Doping with Pr leads to an increase in oxygen mobility and surface reactivity as well due to the formation of ordered chains of Pr
4+/3+ cations [
75,
200,
201]. For Tb-doped ceria, it was demonstrated that it possesses a high oxygen heteroexchange rate comparable with that for Gd-doped ceria [
199,
201]. On the other hand, it was demonstrated that oxygen mobility of Ce
1-xTb
xO
2-δ (
x = 0, 0.2 and 0.5) decreases with increasing Tb content probably due to interaction between defects resulting in forming local associates [
202,
203]. Nevertheless, the oxygen permeability of membranes based on some Pr- and Tb-doped ceria was comparable to that for similar membranes based on perovskites such as LFN and LSFC [
94,
199].
Figure 13 demonstrates comparison of the oxygen tracer diffusion coefficient values of MIEC doped ceria materials.
4.3. Ruddlesden – Popper phases
The Ruddlesden – Popper (RP) phases with a general formula of (AO)(ABO
3)
n or A
n+1B
nO
3n+1 consist of the perovskite layers ABO
3-δ alternating with the rock salt layers A
2O
2+δ [
62,
64,
67,
75,
87,
123,
204,
205,
206,
207]. The important feature of RP phases, which makes them attractive SOFC cathodes and oxygen separation membranes materials, is a fine oxygen transport provided via cooperative mechanism of oxygen migration. In this case, both lattice and interstitial oxide anions accumulating in a high extent are involved in the process of oxygen transport (
Figure 14) [
54,
62,
64,
67,
75,
123,
204,
207,
208,
209,
210,
211,
212,
213,
214]. This allows to reach superior oxygen mobility compared to other MIECs (
Figure 15). On the other hand, doping with alkaline earth metals (Ca, Sr, Ba), which significantly improves total conductivity, leads to an apparent decrease in the oxygen tracer diffusion coefficient values due to a decrease in the interstitial oxygen content and a larger size of dopant cations resulting in steric hindrances for the oxygen transport [
206,
207,
209,
215,
216,
217]. In some cases, it leads to the formation of slow diffusion channels with complicated pathways (
Figure 14). The fraction of oxygen involved in the oxygen slow diffusion channel increases with increasing the cation-dopant radius in a row of Ca, Sr, Ba. With decreasing the host Ln cation size in the row of Ln = La, Pr, Nd, this effect becomes less pronounced. Introducing A-site deficiency can slightly increase oxygen diffusivity [
54,
75,
209,
218,
219,
220]. Doping La
2NiO
4+δ with other lanthanides (Nd, Sm, Gd, Eu, etc.) can slightly increase or decrease the oxygen mobility as well [
221,
222]. The information on the effect of doping RP nickelates in B-site with such cations as Cu on the oxygen transport properties is still lacking and controversial. The oxygen diffusivity can increase while doping with Cu due to elongation of Ni/Cu–O bonds [
223,
224] and anomalous grain growth due to Cu-rich liquid phase presence during sintering [
225]; it can decrease due to decreasing the oxygen content [
226,
227]; a non-monotonous dependence can be observed as well [
228].
The RP phases of higher orders, different from the first-order ones being overstoichometric and accumulating large amount of highly-mobile interstitial oxygen, tend to be hypostoichiometric. Hence, they contain less amounts of interstitial oxygen in the rock salt layers and more oxygen vacancies in the perovskite layers. As a result, the oxygen diffusivity of the higher-order RP phases is lower compared to that for the first-order RP phases (
Figure 16). For these materials the contribution of the oxygen vacancy migration in the perovskite layers into the diffusion mechanism becomes predominant [
207,
229,
230,
231,
232,
233].
It was also reported [
233] that some RP phases possess proton mobility, which results in accelerating the cathodic reaction process in H-SOFCs. Proton migration is believed to be implemented via Grotthuss mechanism (
Figure 3 (b)). It includes two main pathways, namely, the inner-layer migration within the perovskite structure and the inter-layer migration between neighboring perovskite layers across the rock sat layer [
233].
4.4. Pyrochlores
Pyrochlore structure A
2B
2O
7 is a derivative of the fluorite structure in which a half of cubes are replaced by octahedra (more precisely, it consists of the alternating AO
8 polyhedra and BO
6 trigonal antiprisms). Pyrochlores possessing a high mixed ionic-electronic conductivity such as doped Pr
2Zr
2O
7, Gd
2Ti
2O
7, Er
2RuMnO
7, etc. are used in SOFC cathodes [
128,
234,
235], oxygen [
236,
237,
238] and hydrogen separation membranes [
239,
240]. They contain high amounts of oxygen vacancies providing fine oxygen transport characteristics. Some pyrochlores contain interstitial oxide anions formed due to Frenkel disordering
involved in the oxygen diffusion as well [
97]. There are two forms of oxygen in the pyrochlore structure (O, O’), which content ratio is 6:1. However, according to TPIE C
18O
2 studies [
55,
62,
128,
238,
241,
242,
243], the oxygen bulk mobility is uniform, or, in the case of its nonuniformity, the ratio of various oxygen forms differing in their mobility differs from 6:1. This makes evidence that the oxygen migration mechanism is rather complex and includes the oxygen of both O- and O’-sublattices. It was proposed as well that the oxygen forms differing in their mobility can be associated with A–O–A, A–O–B and B–O–B migration pathways with their fraction depending on the partial disordering of the pyrochlore structure [
128,
238]. The other feature of some pyrochlores (Mg-doped Sm and Gd zirconates) is the fast oxygen transport along grain boundaries being characterized by a very high mobility (
D* ~10
–7 cm
2 s
–1 at 1000 K) [
128]. The comparison of the oxygen mobility of some pyrochlores is given in
Figure 17.
Shimura
et al. [
244] studied the proton conductivity of Ln
2Zr
2O
7-based (Ln = La, Nd, Sm, Gd и Er) pyrochlore oxides and found that the conductivity of the Ln
2Zr
1.8Y
0.2O
7-δ (Ln = La, Nd, Sm, Gd и Er) solid solutions in a hydrogen atmosphere at
T > 600 °C was comparable to that of perovskites. The effect of alkaline earth cation (Mg, Ca, Sr, and Ba) and Y substitutions for both the La and Zr sites in pyrochlore La
2Zr
2O
7 on its proton conductivity was studied in details in [
166,
167,
244,
245]. The highest proton conductivity was obtained by substituting Ca and Sr for La. The conductivity of (La
1.97Ca
0.03)Zr
2O
7-δ between 600 and 700 °C was determined to be 4×10
–4 S cm
–1 [
166]. It is important to note that the degree of Ca substitution in such solid solutions is low, no higher than
x = 0.05 in (La
2-xCa
x)Zr
2O
7-δ. Eurenius
et al. [
246,
247] recently studied the proton conductivity of rare-earth stannates and titanates with the pyrochlore structure: A
2-xCa
xSn
2O
7-x/2 (A = La, Sm, Yb) and Sm
2Ti
1.92Y
0.08O
7-δ, Sm
1.92Ca
0.08Ti
2O
7-δ. The conductivity of the A-site acceptor substituted pyrochlores was about one order of magnitude higher than that of the B-site substituted materials. On the other hand, the conductivity clearly depended on the nature of the B-site cation: an increase in the ionic radius and electronegativity of the B-site cation was accompanied by an increase in conductivity. The proton conductivity of the samarium titanate-based solid solutions and, especially that of the rare-earth stannates was found to be lower than that of the Ca-doped La
2Zr
2O
7.
Calcium and strontium doped lanthanum zirconates, La
2-xD
xZr
2O
7-δ (
x = 0.05, 0.1; D = Ca, Sr) were extensively studied as electrolyte materials for proton-conducting solid oxide fuel cells (PC-SOFCs) [
166,
245,
248,
249,
250]. Calcium appears to be the most promising dopant because strontium doping results in the formation of a second phase, SrZrO
3 with a perovskite structure, on the surface of strontium-containing zirconate ceramics [
249] and, more importantly, because the overall conductivity of strontium-containing ceramics is an order of magnitude lower than that of calcium-containing ceramics. It was reported that pyrochlore solid solutions La
1.95Ca
0.05Zr
2O
6.95 and La
1.9Ca
0.1Zr
2O
6.9 were almost identical in proton conductivity [
166,
248]: 7.0×10
–4 S cm
–1 at 600°C. As was shown earlier [
251], the proton conductivity of Sm
2-xCa
xZr
2O
7-δ (x = 0.05) at 600°C is ~7.5×10
–4 S cm
–1 [
251].
Gas-tight proton-conducting Nd
2-xCa
xZr
2O
7-δ (
x = 0, 0.05) ceramics were prepared for the first time via mechanical activation of the oxide mixture, followed by the single-step firing at 1600 °C for 3 or 10 h [
252]. Like in the case of (Ln
1-xCa
x)
2Zr
2O
7-x (Ln = La, Sm;
x = 0.05) pyrochlore solid solutions, the unit-cell parameter of the Ca-doped material Nd
2-xCa
xZr
2O
7-δ (
x = 0.05) was smaller than that of the undoped Nd
2Zr
2O
7. The Rietveld-refined XRD data demonstrated that Ca substitutes on both cation sites of zirconate and that most of the Ca cations resides in the Zr sublattice. As a result, the total conductivity of Nd
2-xCa
xZr
2O
7-δ (
x = 0.05) in wet air was lower than that of the (Ln
1-xCa
x)
2Zr
2O
7-x (Ln = La, Sm;
x =0.05) pyrochlores, where Ca substituted predominantly on the Ln site. The proton conductivity in wet air was 3×10
-4 S cm
–1 at 500 °C (7×10
–4 S cm
–1 at 600 °C) in (La
1-xCa
x)
2Zr
2O
7-x (
x = 0.05), 7×10
–5 S cm
–1 at 500 °C (~2×10
–4 S cm
–1 at 600 °C) in (Nd
1-xCa
x)
2Zr
2O
7-x (
x = 0.05), and 1×10
–4 S cm
–1 at 500 °C (7.5×10
–4 S cm
–1 at 600 °C) in (Sm
1-xCa
x)
2Zr
2O
7-x (
x = 0.05). Even though the total conductivity of the Ca-doped zirconate Nd
2-xCa
xZr
2O
7-δ (
x = 0.05) was an order of magnitude higher than that of Nd
2Zr
2O
7, predominant Ca substitution on the Zr site leads to a lower proton conductivity in comparison with that of (Ln
1-xCa
x)
2Zr
2O
7-x (Ln = La, Sm;
x =0.05), where all of the Ca cations resided on the Ln site. It is also possible that this result was due to the higher firing temperature: the (Ln
1-xCa
x)
2Zr
2O
7-x (Ln = La, Sm;
x =0.05) materials were prepared by firing at 1550 °C for 10–50 h [
166,
251], whereas a higher firing temperature of 1600 °C (3 and 10 h) was chosen for (Nd
1-xCa
x)
2Zr
2O
7-x (
x = 0.05) in order to obtain gas-tight ceramics.
4.6. Other materials
The group of promising materials recently studied in the application as low- and intermediate-temperature SOFC cathodes (including H-SOFC) as well as oxygen separation membranes are double perovskites A
2B
2O
6-δ or A
2B
2O
5+δ (A = La, Pr, Ca, Ba, etc., B = Mg, Mo, Sn, Fe, etc.) [
54,
64,
75,
132,
133,
156,
261,
262,
263]. Double perovskites are attractive because they can accommodate a large amount of nonstoichiometric oxygen, as well as have a wide variation in the effective charge of the B-site cations, have high redox stability and moderate values of the thermal expansion coefficient. Along with this, they possess very high oxygen (
D* ~ 10
–8 – 10
–7 cm
2 s
–1 at 700 °C) and, in some cases, hydrogen mobility (
D* ~ 10
–6 cm
2 s
–1 at 500 °C) [
67,
156,
264]. The other promising perovskite-based layered materials to be mentioned here are triple [
265,
266], quadruple [
267] and even quintuple perovskites [
268].
Some MIEC spinels such as Mn
xCo
3-xO
4 [
54,
269], Fe
0.6Mn
0.6Co
0.6Ni
0.6Cr
0.6O
4 [
270], LaFe
2O
4 [
234] can be utilized as cathode materials for SOFCs, including proton-conducting cells, due to a high activity in the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). MnFe
2O
4 spinel and its composite with Gd-doped ceria are used for the fabrication of oxygen permeable protecting (buffer) layer of asymmetric supported oxygen separation membranes [
52,
54,
55,
75,
259].
Various types of oxide materials, which possess ionic conductivity due to cooperative oxygen migration mechanisms involving cooperative motion of some forms of oxygen, can be used as SOFC electrolytes or, as a composite with electronically conductive or MIEC materials, as SOFC electrodes and oxygen separation membranes (or their permselective layers). Amongst these materials, doped La silicates/germanates with the apatite structure [
62,
75,
91,
93,
271] (
Figure 19), alkaline-earth metal doped La gallates with β-K
2SO
4 structure (
Figure 20) [
91,
93,
272], alkaline-earth metal ferrites, cobaltites, aluminates, gallates and indates with a brownmillerite structure (
Figure 21) [
91,
93,
273,
274], M
3-xM’
xTi
2NbO
10−δ (M = Na, Ca, Cs; M = Bi, Ln, Rb) with a Dion–Jacobson-type layered perovskite structure [
275,
276,
277], etc. [
54,
62,
64,
75] are to be mentioned. Mayenites based on Ca
12Al
7O
33 possessing a high oxygen mobility due to the fast transport of weakly bound intracellular ‘free’ oxygen (
Figure 22) are to be mentioned as well [
91,
93,
95,
96,
278]. Mayenite possessing generally oxide ionic type of conductivity doped with Si allows to increase electronic conductivity, which is necessary for the cathode application [
54,
279]. It is to be noted that these materials, including apatites, brownmillerites, mayenites, etc., possess a high protonic conductivity [
91,
273,
280,
281], hence, they can be used in H-SOFCs and hydrogen separation membranes as well. E.g., mayenites possess a high hydrogen diffusivity which is implemented by vehicle and Grotthuss mechanisms including OH
– migration and reorientation of O–H bonds to jump between neighboring oxygen species in (O–H–O)
3– transition states (
Figure 23) as well as hydrogen jumps in a form of hydride H
– (
Figure 24) and non-charged H
0 [
281].
Swedenborgite-like RBaCo
4-xM
xO
7 (R = Y, Ca, In, Lu, Yb, etc., M = Co, Zn, Fe, Al, Ga) phases were demonstrated to be potential cathodes for low-temperature SOFCs due to their low thermal expansion and excellent electrochemical performance; however, their phase decomposition at elevated temperatures of 700–800 °C limited their application [
64,
133,
282,
283].
Other materials with low thermal expansion coefficient values, high total conductivity and fine oxygen transport properties to be mentioned as candidate SOFC cathodes are yttrium iron garnet Y
3Fe
5O
12 [
54,
133,
284], misfit layered Ca
3Co
4O
9-based phases [
285,
286,
287,
288,
289,
290], and Aurivillius oxides (Bi
2O
2)(A
m-1B
mO
3m+1) (A = Na
+, K
+, Ca
2+, Sr
2+, Pb
2+, Bi
3+, etc.; B = Ti
4+, Nb
5+, Ta
5+, etc.) [
291,
292]. The Aurivillius oxide Bi
2Sr
2Nb
2MnO
12-δ is notable to demonstrate an excellent chemical stability (including CO
2 tolerance) as well. Ca
3Co
4O
9 demonstrates fast surface exchange kinetics (k* = 1.6 × 10
−7 cm s
−1 at 700 °C to be compared to 1.3 × 10
−7 cm s
−1 for the nickelate) [
293], and is promising for air cathodes used in all type SOFCs, H-SOFCs and reversible cells, individually or in composites with protonics [
294], ionics [
295] and MIECs [
296].
Alkaline earth metal doped lanthanide niobates with sheelite, defective perovskite, monoclinic and tetragonal structures possess ionic (protonic and/or oxide-ionic), electronic or mixed ionic-electronic conductivity [
62,
297,
298,
299,
300,
301,
302,
303]. They can be used as a component of the composites for hydrogen separation membranes such as (La,Ca)NbO
4–La
3NbO
7, (La,Ca)NbO
4–LaNb
3O
9 and (La,Ca)NbO
4–NiCu [
62,
297,
298,
299,
300,
301,
302,
303].
Figure 25 demonstrates the oxygen mobility of some non-conventional materials for SOFCs and permselective membranes.
Metals and their alloys, which are able to intercalate and transport proton as a defect (
Figure 3 (a)), are widely used for hydrogen separation membranes. Precious metals such as Pt, Pd, Ru, Ag and their alloys are conventionally used as hydrogen separation membrane materials. They possess absolute selectivity with the respect to hydrogen, however, they are too expensive and have issues with stability under operating conditions [
48,
54,
55,
99,
100,
304,
305,
306]. As an alternative to precious metals, Ni and its alloys being cheap but also possessing a high mixed protonic-electronic conductivity can be used in hydrogen separation membranes in an individual form or as a component of cermet composites [
54,
55,
90,
195,
307,
308]. V and its alloys with Ni, Cu, V, Nb, Ta and other metals are promising materials showing high hydrogen permeation fluxes exceeding those for Pd-based membranes and having lower cost [
54,
307,
308,
309]. The comparison of the hydrogen self-diffusion coefficient values of various metals and alloys is given in
Figure 26.