A fuel cell is an electrochemical device that converts the chemical energy of a fuel directly into the electrical energy. All fuel cells consist of two electrodes, anode and cathode, and an electrolyte. Lack of direct combustion leads to higher efficiency than Carnot heat engines and also reduced environmental impact. Solid oxide fuel cells are a justify; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; TEXT-INDENT: 0cm; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; unicode-bidi: embed; DIRECTION: ltr" Amongst the various methods available for ceramic processing, the use of microwaves as energy source for synthesis and sintering of ceramics has gained substantial attention among scientists, due to its unique advantages namely, shorter processing times and the superior quality of the samples obtained thereafter. In this investigation, La based perovskite oxide cathode, La 0.6 Ca 0.4 Fe 0.8 Ni 0.2 O 3 was used because of its good electron and ion conductivity, chemical stability and satisfactory catalytic activity. Sol-gel method was used to synthesize it. XRD analysis revealed that microwave results in much better crystallization. Analyzing the picks broadening of the XRD results revealed that annealing by microwave, induce directional dependent stress. Electrical resistance measurement versus temperature of microwave assisted synthesized samples reveals that dual conductivity occur in a lower temperature which attribute to the better crystallization and less oxygen content. This leads to increase the active layer between the electrolyte and cathode that results better performance. Small polaron hopping was responsible mechanism in conductivity. Both in the synthesizing and the annealing, less activation energy achieved from microwave irradiation. Scanning electron microscope used to study the topography of the particles. It reveals that microwave assisted synthesis results in smaller particles. Microwave annealing had no tangible particle size difference in comparison to conventional prepared samples using oven. In the end electrochemical impedance measurement used to observe the electrochemical of symmetric cell with La 0.6 Ca 0.4 Fe 0.8 Ni 0.2 O 3 cathode.
