Acceptor doped barium cerate dissolves significant amounts of water th
us forming protonic defects. High proton mobility is generally conside
red to depend strongly on the dynamics of the proton environment. In t
his paper numerical results using quantum molecular dynamics simulatio
ns are presented to study the dynamics of the BaCeO3 host lattice. At
elevated temperatures O-Ce-O bending modes mainly determine the oxygen
separation coordinate Q which is considered to be responsible for mod
ulating the proton transfer potential. It is also anticipated that thi
s frequency coincides with the attempt frequency for proton conduction
. For low proton excitations the dynamics of the proton is found to be
part of a hydroxide ion rotating around the oxygen atom in the plane
perpendicular to the Ce-O-Ce axis.