Fabrication of Lanthanum Strontium Manganite Ceramics via Agar Gel Casting and Solid State Sintering.

Fabricating lanthanum strontium manganite (LSM) ceramics with certain shapes is important for the design and construction of high-temperature energy conversion and storage devices. Here, we describe a low-cost and environmentally friendly method for fabricating LSM ceramics via agar gel casting and high temperature sintering. This new approach uses temperature tuning to fabricate LSM gel bodies, not only by manufacturing in the secondary process but also by remolding and recycling during the gel casting process. The effect of the sintering temperature on the properties of LSM ceramics was investigated as well. As a result, the porosity and compressive strength of LSM ceramics sintered at 1000 °C are ~60% and 5.6 MPa, respectively. When the sintering temperature increases to 1200 °C, the porosity decreases to ~28%, whereas the compressive strength increases to 25 MPa, which is able to meet the requirement of cathode-supported SOFCs (solid oxide fuel cells).