Collosal conductivity

A new material that sports a large ionic conductivity could help researchers build more efficient fuel cells.

The structure of the material, a super-lattice developed by researchers at Spain's Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, was recently characterised at the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).

The analysis was done with ORNL's 300kV Z-contrast scanning transmission electron microscope which produced images that showed the crystal structure that accounts for the material's conductivity.

Maria Varela of ORNL's Materials Science and Technology Division, who analysed the material's structure with senior researcher, Stephen Pennycook, said: 'We can see the strained, yet still ordered interface structure that opens up a wide pathway for ions to be conducted.'

In a solid oxide fuel cell, solid electrolytes allow oxygen ions to travel from cathode to anode. However, existing materials have not provided atomic voids large enough to easily accommodate the path of the conducted ions.