Structure and properties of NASICON synthesized by two different zirconium salts

ZrOCl₂·8H₂O and ZrO(NO₃)₂·2H₂O were used respectively to synthesize a NASICON solid electrolyte by a sol-gel method. The structure and properties of two samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The crystal structure was investigated by the Rietveld refinement. It is found that both the samples contain a monoclinic C2/c phase as the main conductive phase with the lattice parameters of a=1.56312 nm, b=0.90784 nm and c=0.92203 nm, though a small amount of rhombohedral phase is also detected in the final product. The sample synthesized by ZrO(NO₃)2·2H₂O contains more monoclinic phase (89.48wt%) than that synthesized by ZrOCl₂·8H₂O (74.91wt%). As expected, the ionic conductivity of the latter is higher than that of the former; however, the activation energy of the latter (0.37 eV) is slightly higher than that of the former (0.35 eV).