Cerium based oxides have recently emerged as highly attractive choice for two-steps thermochemical water splitting cycles for H2 production because of their ability to reversibly store and release lattice oxygen in inert conditions between 1573-1773 K. A novel surfactant-assisted method was developed in our laboratory to enhance OSC (oxygen storage capacity) properties and thermo stability of Ce0.15Zr0.79Nd0.04La0.02O2-δ composition. The developed procedure was used to prepare other compositions with differents amount of CeO2, pure and doped with La and Nd. All prepared compositions were subjected to different aging treatments at different temperature under air and N2 atmosphere. The textural, structural and OSC properties were studied and the reactivity versus water splitting at 1073K was tested. The results obtained highlight that the reactivity depends on the temperature of treatments and on the composition. The best result was obtained for Ce0.5Zr0.5O2 composition treated at 1673K in N2 (308 μmol H2/g of CeO2). Further studies are in progress to investigate the correlation between the structure and the reactivity of these oxides.
