Y. Govind Reddy, A. Sadananda Chary and S. Narender Reddy
Composite solid electrolytes in the system (1-x)Pb(NO3)2 – x γ-Al2O3 were prepared by dispersing the nano particles of alumina (60 nm) by mechanical mixing in the presence of acetone at room temperature. Characterization was done by the X-Ray Diffractometry and ruled out the formation solid solutions of these composite systems with different mole percentages of alumina. Electrical conductivity studies with temperature have shown a substantial enhancement of the order of 1-2 orders of magnitude in the dispersed system for 3.14 mole percent in the extrinsic conduction region with respect to the pure host material. This enhancement of conductivity was observed to vary with m/o alumina and peaking at a particular mole percent was explained on the basis of creation of anion vacancies in the space-charge region formed at the interfaces between the host and dispersoid particles. The fall of enhancement at higher mole percent was attributed due to the blocking effects of alumina particles in these dispersed systems
