Cation conductors

Ionic conductivity is used in oxygen sensors and in batteries (qv). Stabilized zirconia, Zr Ca 02 has a very large number of oxygen vacancies and very high conductivity. P-Alurnina/72(9(9j5 -4< -(y, NaAl O y, is an excellent cation conductor because of the high mobiUty of Na" ions. Ceramics of P-alurnina are used as the electrolyte in sodium-sulfur batteries. 

Crystalline ionic conductors. Superionic conductors have already been briefly introduced in Section 1.2.2.2. They have been known for quite a long time, and a major NATO Advanced Study Institute on such conductors was held as early as 1972 (van Gool 1973). Of course, all ionic crystals are to a greater or lesser extent ionically conducting - usually they are cationic conductors, because cations are smaller than anions. Superionic conductors typically have ionic conductivities lO" times higher than do ordinary ionic crystals such as KCl or AgCl. 

The obvious question then arises as to whether the effective double layer exists before current or potential application. Both XPS and STM have shown that this is indeed the case due to thermal diffusion during electrode deposition at elevated temperatures. It is important to remember that most solid electrolytes, including YSZ and (3"-Al2C)3, are non-stoichiometric compounds. The non-stoichiometry, 8, is usually small (< 10 4)85 and temperature dependent, but nevertheless sufficiently large to provide enough ions to form an effective double-layer on both electrodes without any significant change in the solid electrolyte non-stoichiometry. This open-circuit effective double layer must, however, be relatively sparse in most circumstances. The effective double layer on the catalyst-electrode becomes dense only upon anodic potential application in the case of anionic conductors and cathodic potential application in the case of cationic conductors. 

AgsSBr, /3-AgsSI, and a-AgsSI are cationic conductors due to the structural disorder of the cation sublattices. AgsSI (see Fig. 5) has been discussed for use in solid-electrolyte cells (209,371, 374,414-416) because of its high silver ionic conductivity at rather low temperatures (see Section II,D,1). The practical use seems to be limited, however, by an electronic part of the conductivity that is not negligible (370), and by the instability of the material with respect to loss of iodine (415). 

Polyphosphazenes sulfonates XIX with the anion covalently attached to the polymer are a new class of cation conductors that have been synthesized by Shriver [625]. They were obtained by reaction of Na0C2H4S03Na with an excess of polydichlorophosphazene in the presence of 15-crown-5, followed by the reaction of the partially substituted product with the sodium salt of poly(ethylene glycol methyl ether). The conductivity at 80 °C of the polymer with x=1.8, m=7.22 is 1.7x10 S cm This low conductivity can be attributed to an extensive ion pair formation between the sodium and sulfonate ions. 

As the electrolytes, alkali metal sulfates(M=Li, Na, and K)(l-ll), 3-Alumina(12), and NASIC0N(13, 14) have been examined. Alkali metal sulfates are cation conductors at elevated temperature(>700 C). However, they have several disadvantages. One is the phase transformation of the sulfates(15-18). By this transformation, cracks occur in the electrolyte body and result in the permeation of the ambient gases. The other disadvantage is their low electrical conductivity. Mono, di, or tri-valent cations(19-24) have been doped so as to enhance their conductivity. Furthermore, they become ductile at a tem-... 

The majority of unipolar ionic conductors identified to date are polymorphic compounds with several phase transitions, where the phases have different ionic conductivities owing to modifications in the substructure of the mobile ions [28], One of the first studied cationic conductors was a-Agl [21]. Silver iodide exhibits different polymorphic structures. Agl has a low-temperature phase, that is, [3-Agl, which crystallizes in the hexagonal wurtzite structure type, and a high-temperature cubic phase, a-Agl, which shows a cubic CsCl structure type [20,22] (see Section 2.4.5). 

Both types of ions can be carriers of electric current in ionic solids but the majority of fast ionic conductors discovered are cationic conductors, for the reasons previously explained. 

The author of this book has been permanently active during his career in the held of materials science, studying diffusion, adsorption, ion exchange, cationic conduction, catalysis and permeation in metals, zeolites, silica, and perovskites. From his experience, the author considers that during the last years, a new held in materials science, that he calls the physical chemistry of materials, which emphasizes the study of materials for chemical, sustainable energy, and pollution abatement applications, has been developed. With regard to this development, the aim of this book is to teach the methods of syntheses and characterization of adsorbents, ion exchangers, cationic conductors, catalysts, and permeable porous and dense materials and their properties and applications. 

Finally, two remarks regarding terminology. If an electrochemical reaction displays a negligible resistance, the corresponding electrode is called a reversible electrode . Reversible electrodes are known for cation conductors, but have not been reported for oxide ion conductors. The term electrode resistance denotes the electrical resistance due to the electrochemical reaction, or to the transfer through the space charge, rather than the resistance of the electrode material itself. 

Copper cation conductors - solid electrolyte Copper-conducting solid electrolyte - solid electrolyte... 

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