Room‐Temperature Synthesis of a Compositionally Complex Rare‐Earth Carbonate Hydroxide and its Conversion into a Bixbyite‐Type High‐Entropy Sesquioxide

Abstract

In the present work, the solvent‐deficient synthesis of the high‐entropy rare‐earth carbonate hydroxide RE(CO3)(OH) (RE=La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, and Gd) and its thermal conversion into bixbyite‐type sesquioxide RE2O3 are reported for the first time. The high‐entropy rare earth carbonate hydroxide was prepared via mechanochemical reaction of the corresponding metal nitrate hydrates with ammonium hydrogen carbonate followed by the removal of the NH4NO3 by‐product. Calcination of the carbonate hydroxide precursor in ambient atmosphere at temperatures in the range from 500 to 1000 °C led to the high‐entropy rare earth sesquioxide which exhibited a bixbyite‐type structure ( ) independent of the calcination temperature. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) investigation revealed the homogeneous distribution of all six rare earth cations in the high‐entropy sesquioxide lattice, however, with some compositional variation between individual grains. The bixbyite‐type structure may be considered as the result of heavy doping of the fluorite‐type CeO2 lattice with the other rare earth cations, which leads to a high concentration of oxygen vacancies, as revealed by electron diffraction and Raman spectroscopy data. The solvent‐deficient synthesis method used in the present study is considered as a valuable, straightforward and easily up‐scalable method to synthesize compositionally complex oxide ceramics.