Study of the hydration level in proton conducting oxides using neutron diffraction with polarization analysis

We report results from neutron diffraction with polarization analysis of the effect of In dopant level on the hydrogen concentration in hydrated samples of the proton conducting perovskite type oxide BaZr1−xInxO3−x/2 with x = 0, 0.175, 0.20, 0.225, 0.25, and 0.275. Analysis of the neutron data establishes a trend of increasing hydrogen concentration, which is comparable to that obtained from thermogravimetric measurements on the same samples, as well as an increased unit-cell size and local structural disorder as a function of increasing In dopant level. These results encourage further use of neutron diffraction with polarization analysis as a non-destructive technique for the determination of the total hydrogen concentration, and structural properties, of proton conducting oxides as well as other hydrogen-containing materials.