Materials Design for Electrode Particles with High Magnetic Sensitivity and Their Magnetic Orientation in Low Magnetic Field

Abstract

In this study, the magnetic orientation behavior of K₂NiF₄ type layered Ni-based perovskite compound Ln₂NiO₄ (Ln = La, Pr and Nd), which has attracted much attention as a cathode material for low-temperature solid oxide fuel cells, was investigated. The final goal of this study is to develop effective process to fabricate oriented cathodes on electrolytes in a low magnetic field. According to our previous study, La₂NiO₄ can be oriented in a strong magnetic field of 12 T, but no orientation is made under a low magnetic field of 1 T or less. On the other hand, as a result of this study, it was found that, for example, PrNdNiO₄ shown below was oriented in a low magnetic field of 0.9 T, leading to materials design for high performance electrode particles. In addition, the easy magnetization axis for PrNdNiO₄ was the c-axis. Higher conductivity was obtained on the ab plane in conductivity measurements. From these results, it is shown that high performance oriented electrode of PrNdNiO₄ can be fabricated by applying a low magnetic field parallel to the surface of electrolyte.

Graphical Abstract

XRD patterns from the surfaces (a) perpendicular and (b) parallel to magnetic field applied for PrNdNiO4 bulk fabricated by slip-casting in magnetic field. For comparison, powder XRD pattern of PrNdNiO4 is shown on (c) in the figure.