Synthesis and characterization of lanthanum aluminate powders via a polymer complexing plus combustion route

► Polymer complexing plus combustion route is a widely used method to produce complex oxide powders. ► In this paper, we investigated the influence of different complexing polymers, PVA and PEG, to the phase evolution and sintering properties of lanthanum aluminate. ► To obtain better quality LaAlO3 powders, PEG is preferred over PVA. ► We thus concluded that it is more important to get powders with desirable morphology and less agglomeration when different polymers can be selected for the synthesis of complex oxides.