| Summary: | A simple low temperature synthesis route has been presented for the preparation of single perovskite phase of La0.6Sr0.4CoO3-σ (LSCO) for cathode application in intermediate temperature proton conducting solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC). A wet chemical method namely a modified sol-gel method has been applied in this work. In this method, a combined citric acid and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) has been used as a chelating agent. Ethylene glycol (EG) and activated carbon (AC) have been used as surfactants in this process. The synthesized powders were characterized by X-ray diffractometer (XRD), scanning electron microscope (FESEM) equipped with energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectrometer and particle size analyzer (PSA) for phase formation, morphology and particle size analysis, respectively. XRD result revealed that a single LSCO perovskite phase for both surfactants formed at calcination temperature of 900 °C. The produced single phase powders consist of homogeneous and almost identical shape of particles as shown in SEM images. However, the powder prepared using EG has a smaller average particle size diameter as compared with the powder prepared using AC which is 149 nm and 190 nm, respectively. © 2016, Malaysian Society of Analytical Sciences. All rights reserved.
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