Cooperative mechanisms of oxide ion conduction in tellurites with secondary bond interactions and Grotthuss-like processes.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 39905030.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-025-56108-1 and PMC identifier 11794846.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Oxide-ion conducting materials are gaining considerable attention in various applications ranging from oxide fuel cells to oxygen permeation membranes. The oxide ion migration mechanisms are the basis for designing oxide-ion conducting materials. Here, enlightened by proton diffusion in hydrogen-bond networks, we report the coordination polyhedra cooperative mechanism with similar Grotthuss process of oxide ion migration in tellurites. Bi<sub>2</sub>Te<sub>2</sub>O<sub>7</sub> and Bi<sub>2</sub>Te<sub>4</sub>O<sub>11</sub> were selected due to their abundance of secondary bonds similar to hydrogen bonds and show high oxide ionic conductivity as mixed electronic and ionic conductors. Neutron total scattering experiments with reverse Monte Carlo simulations indicated that the oxide ion migration in those two tellurites is a synergetic effect of mutual transition between Te-O secondary bonds and covalent bonds assisted by Te-O polyhedra rotation. This detailed investigation of the cooperative mechanism with similar Grotthuss process at the atomic scale provides a direction for optimization and discovering oxide ion conducting materials.