Electrical and electrochemical properties of undoped CePO4 and doped Ce0.9Cd0.15−xLi2xPO4 nanomaterials (x = 0 and 0.02)

Synthesis of metal ions (Cd2+, Li+) doped CePO4 nanocrystals were achieved through a simple hydrothermal route at 150 °C using citric acid and poly-ethylene-glycol (PEG-6000). The results obtained reveal that the low percentage of (Cd2+, Li+) dopant affect the structure showing a weak decrease in the lattice parameters compared to the CePO4. The total electrical conductivity plots obtained from impedance spectra, between 300 and 450 °C, indicated that the activation energies for CePO4, Ce0.9Cd0.15PO4, Ce0.9Cd0.13Li0.04PO4 are 1.05, 0.99 and 0.72 eV, respectively, showing an increase of the total conductivity as Li-content increases. The conduction mechanism is described using correlated barrier hopping model. The partial substitution leads to the improvement capacity when increasing the Li-content from 65F·g−1 for Ce0.9Cd0.15PO4 to 75F·g−1 for Ce0.9Cd0.13Li0.04PO4.