Lithium (Li) is a key resource driving the rapid growth of the electric vehicle industry globally, with demand and prices continually on the rise. To address the limited reserves of major lithium sources such as rock and brine, research is underway on seawater Li extraction using electrodialysis and Li-ion selective membranes. Lithium lanthanum titanate (LLTO), an oxide solid electrolyte for all-solid-state batteries, is a promising Li-ion selective membrane. An important factor in enhancing its performance is employing the powder synthesis process. In this study, the LLTO powder is prepared using two synthesis methods: sol-gel reaction (SGR) and solid-state reaction (SSR). Additionally, the powder size and uniformity are compared, which are indices related to membrane performance. X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy are employed for determining characterization, with crystallite size analysis through the full width at half maximum parameter for the powders prepared using the two synthetic methods. The findings reveal that the powder SGR-synthesized powder exhibits smaller and more uniform characteristics (0.68 times smaller crystal size) than its SSR counterpart. This discovery lays the groundwork for optimizing the powder manufacturing process of LLTO membranes, making them more suitable for various applications, including manufacturing high-performance membranes or mass production of membranes.

Transition metal oxide is widely used as a water electrolysis catalyst to substitute for a noble metal catalyst such as IrO2 and RuO2. In this study, the sol-gel method is used to synthesize the CuxCo3-xO4 catalyst for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER),. The CuxCo3-xO4 is synthesized at various calcination temperatures from 250 ℃ to 400 ℃ for 4 h. The CuxCo3- xO4 synthesized at 300 ℃ has a perfect spinel structure without residues of the precursor and secondary phases, such as CuO. The particle size of CuxCo3-xO4 increases with an increase in calcination temperature. Amongst all the samples studied, CuxCo3- xO4, which is synthesized at 300?, has the highest activity for the OER. Its onset potential for the OER is 370 mV and the overpotential at 10 mA/cm2 is 438 mV. The tafel slope of CuxCo3-xO4 synthesized at 300 ℃ has a low value of 58 mV/dec. These results are mainly explained by the increase in the available active surface area of the CuxCo3-xO4 catalyst.

The sol-gel method is the simplest method for synthesizing monodispersed silica particles. The purpose of this study is to synthesize uniform, monodisperse spherical silica nanoparticles using tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS) as the silica precursor, ethanol, and deionized water in the presence of ammonia as a catalyst. The reaction time and temperature and the concentration of the reactants are controlled to investigate the effect of the reaction parameters on the size of the synthesized particles. The size and morphology of the obtained silica particles are investigated using transmission electron microscopy and particle size analysis. The results show that monodispersed silica particles over a size range of 54-504 nm are successfully synthesized by the sol-gel method without using any additional process. The nanosized silica particles can be synthesized at higher TEOS/H2O ratios, lower ammonia concentrations, and especially, higher reaction temperatures.