This report summarizes the work done during the fourth quarter of the project. Effort was directed in two areas, namely, continued further development of the model on the role of connectivity on ionic conductivity of porous bodies, including the role of grain boundaries and space charge, and its relationship to cathode polarization; and fabrication of samaria-doped ceria porous (SDC). The work on the model development involves calculation of the effect of space charge on transport through porous bodies. Three specific cases have been examined: (1) Space charge resistivity greater than the grain resistivity, (2) Space charge resistivity equal to the grain resistivity, and (3) Space charge resistivity lower than the grain resistivity. The model accounts for transport through three regions: the bulk of the grain, the space charge region, and the structural part of the grain boundary. The effect of neck size has been explicitly incorporated. In future work, the effective resistivity will be incorporated into the effective cathode polarization resistance. The results will then be compared with experiments.

This report summarizes the work done during the first quarter of the project. Effort was directed in three areas: (1) The determination of the role of ionic conductor morphology, used in composite cathodes, on the ionic conductivity of the ionic conductor. It was shown that if the particles are not well sintered, the necks formed between particles will be very narrow, and the resulting conductivity will be too low (resistivity will be too high). Specifically, a mathematical equation was derived to demonstrate the singular nature of conductivity. (2) Nanosize powders of Sc-doped CeO{sub 2} were prepared by combustion synthesis. The rationale is that the particle size of the composite electrode must be as small as possible to ensure a high ionic conductivity--and resulting in high performance in fuel cells. Di-gluconic acid (DGA) was used as fuel. The process led to the formation of nanosize Sc-doped CeO{sub 2}. The powder was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). (3) Samples were sintered to form materials containing various levels of porosity, from {approx}3% to {approx}43%. Conductivity was measured over a range of temperatures by four probe DC method. It was observed that in highly porous samples, the conductivity was …