Low-Temperature Synthesis of Praseodymium-Doped Ceria Nanopowders |
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Authors: | Yarong Wang Toshiyuki Mori Ji-Guang Li Takayasu Ikegami |
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Affiliation: | Advanced Materials Laboratory, National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305–0044, Japan |
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Abstract: | Praseodymium-doped ceria (CeO2) nanopowders have been synthesized via a simple but effective carbonate-coprecipitation method, using nitrates as the starting salts and ammonium carbonate as the precipitant. The precursors produced in this work are ammonium rare-earth double carbonates, with a general formula of (NH4)0.16Ce1? x Pr x (CO3)1.58·H2O (0 < x ≤ 0.20), which directly yield oxide solid solutions on thermal decomposition at a very low temperature of ~400°C. Praseodymium doping causes a gradual contraction of the CeO2 lattice, because of the oxidation of Pr3+ to smaller Pr4+, and suppresses crystallite coarsening of the oxides during calcination. Dense ceramics have been fabricated from the thus-prepared nanopowders via pressureless sintering for 4 h at a low temperature of 1200°C. |
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Keywords: | cerium/cerium compounds nanoparticulates praseodymium/praseodymium compounds |
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