Dispersion phenomena in EIS and DIS spectra of porous materials and their representation as transmission line bases ‘diffusion’ elements– part II - a case study of proton conductors

Porosity of materials, understood as an overall averaged parameter or as the pore-size distribution related data is an important quality of numerous functional materials including proton conductive glasses. While most of the existing techniques applied for its assessment cannot be used to monitor the behaviour of ‘live’ systems in operando conditions, it is possible to use Electrochemical Immittance Spectroscopy (EIS) for this purpose. Nevertheless, analysis of these systems still requires an approximation made using transmission lines based models, which can be equated to specific diffusion elements parameters, which can in turn be related to qualities of the porous material investigated. The changes of these parameters can be correlated with various processes– such as dehydration and phase transitions or to the material’s processing history. In this part of the material we present a case study of highly grinded, mechanochemically processed powder-pressed proton conductors: phosphate-silicate glass and two uranyl based compounds– hydroxy phosphate (HUP) and hydroxy arsenate, delivering proof that the dispersive properties of proton transporting materials can be correlated with their dehydration processes, which were followed by means of FT-IR and terahertz time domain spectroscopies.