Synthesis and characterization of Yttria-stabilized-zirconia by spray pyrolysis

Yttria-stabilized-zirconia (YSZ) has been object of many studies due to its great chemical stability and excellent ionic conduction in high temperature. One of the applications of YSZ films is the use as electrolyte in solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC). The great challenge of the SOFC is the development of a intermediary temperature solid oxide fuel cell (ITSOFC) to work in a temperature around 700oC with the same efficiency of high temperature SOFC, with this aim fuel cells utilizing thin electrolyte films ha been developed. Traditional techniques of thin films deposition as Combustion Vapour Deposition (CVD) and Sputtering are very expensive, the reagents must be very pure and it is necessary to use a system of vacuum. Spray pyrolysis is a good alternative to deposit dense films with thickness between 0,1 and 10 . This technique has a lot of advantages front to classic methods of deposition because of the simplicity of the process and the equipment, low cost, and minimal waste production. In this process, when the parameters are very well controlled, it is possible to obtain oxide films with high quality. In the present work, amorphous films consisted of a layer of 8 mol% Yttria-stabilized zirconia were produced by spray pyrolysis and heat treated to obtain crystalline films. The film was prepared with zirconium acetylacetonate (Zr(C6H7O2)4) and yttrium chloride (YCl3.6H2O), dissolved in ethanol (C2H6O) and diethylene glycol butyl ether (C8H18O3) mixed in the volume ratio of 1:1, and a disk of steel 316L was used as substrate. The amorphous film was deposited in the substrate heat until 280oC ± 50oC and after deposition from thermal treatment at 700oC, the amorphous film was changed into Yttria-stabilized-zirconia crystalline film. The precursor solution was characterized for the Differential Thermal Analysis (DTA). The morphology and crystallinity of the films was investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), respectively. The results obtained showed that the films obtained were dense and crystalline (au)