(US5143751-A)      Highly sinterable lanthanum chromite powder contg. a dopant metal is prepd by:- (1) separately dissolving a La source, a Cr source and a source of a dopant metal such as Ca, Sr, Co, Ba, Mg or their mixtures in a mixture of an acid such as polycarboxylic acids, hydroxyacids and their mixtures, and a polyhydroxy alcohol, to form a soln of each. (2) evaporating a substantial amt. of solns. in (1) and filtering any formed precipate out. (3) mixing solns. together in desired ratio and heating the soln. mixture to reduce alcohol content. Further heating follows under vacuum conditions until esterification and polymerisation occur. The formed submicron polymer precipates. (4) continual heating of the soln. mixture under a vacuum condition until a foamed, porous mass of amorphous organic polymeric material forms (5) heating the foamed amorphous polymeric material to burn off organic components and produce a hard, porous, charred material (I) comprising La, Cr and dopant metal. (6) grinding (I) to a powder. (7) heating (I) at 590-950 deg.C in a flowing inert gas contg. 100 to 50,000 ppm O2 and less than 300ppm CO2. This provides a sinturable material (II) having a high specific surface area of 7-30 m2/g and consisting essentially of LaCrO3, contg. 5-20 wt.% of a chromite of the dopant metal. (8) the addn. of (II) to an aq. soln. mixture of a nitrate of Cr and a nitrate of a dopant metal to form a slurry. Total nitrate added is in an amt. effective to provide 3-20 wt.% dopant metal chromate after step (11). (9) grinding the particles in the slurry to provide particles of a sinterable material having a diameter upt o3 nm in the slurry. (10) taking the nitrate slurry with the ground particles, simultaneously evaporating solvent and coating the particles of sinterable material with a solidified mixture of nitrates, to provide dry, coated particles (11) heating these particles at a temp. effective to convert the nitrate coating to a chromate coating. The chromate coating constitutes 3 to 20wt% of the total wt. of the coated particles. Thus, providing a highly sinterable powder having a high specific surface area of 7-30 m2/g.    USE/ADVANTAGE -   The powder can be used to make a connection layer on an electrode of an electrochemical cell.