Hydrogen incorporation into high temperature protonic conductors : nuclear microprobe microanalysis by means of H(p,p,) H scattering

International audienceProtonic conductivity of some solid state materials at an intermediate temperature range (400–600 °C), referred as high temperature protonic conductor (HTPC), suggests their application as electrolytes in electrochemical cells, batteries, sensors, etc. Among them, some perovskites can be protonic and electronic conductors. Several obstacles remain to achieve the full potential of these ceramic membranes, among them the lack of measurement techniques and of an unambiguous model for conductivity. A precise understanding of the transport mechanisms requires local profiling of hydrogen concentrations within the microstructure of the ceramic. We have used the nuclear microprobe of the Laboratoire Pierre SÜE to investigate quantitatively the spatial distribution of hydrogen after water heat treatment of textured perovskites, SrCe0.9Y0.1O3−δ and Sr3Ca1+xNb2−xO9−δ, x = 0.18, synthesized according to a melt-process developed at NASA GRC. A not very common method has been developed for hydrogen measurements in thin samples, 1H(p, p)1H elastic recoil coincidence spectrometry (ERCS). Early experiments have evidenced hydrogen concentration enhancement within grain boundaries