Abstract
Strontium doped lanthanum manganite (LSM) with perovskite structure for SOFC cathode material shows high electrical conductivity and good chemical stability, whereas the electrical conductivity at intermediate temperature below $800^{\circ}C$ is not sufficient due to low oxygen ion conductivity. The approach to improve electrical conductivity is to make more oxygen vacancies by substituting alkaline earths (such as Ca, Sr and Ba) for La and/or a transition metal (such as Fe, Co and Cu) for Mn. Among various cathode materials, $LaSrMnCuO_3$ has recently been suggested as the potential cathode materials for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). As for the Cu doping at the B-site, it has been reported that the valence change of Mn ions is occurred by substituting Cu ions and it leads to formation of oxygen vacancies. The electrical conductivity is also affected by doping element at the A-site and the co-doping effect between A-site and B-site should be described. In this study, the $La_{1-x}Sr_xMn_{0.8}Cu_{0.2}O_{3{\pm}{\delta}}$ ($0{\leq}x{\leq}0.4$) systems were synthesized by a combined EDTA-citrate complexing process. The crystal structure, morphology, thermal expansion and electrical conductivity with different Sr contents were studied and their co-doping effects were also investigated.
