We have used classical interatomic potentials to determine the structure, interface energy and oxygen vacancy segregation energies of eight different grain boundaries (CBs) in BaZrO3 with tilt axis [(1) over bar 10]. Two of these have been studied previously with density functional theory and the agreement is satisfactory. The results suggest that oxygen vacancies prefer to reside near the boundary interface for all these CBs. The minimum segregation energies range between -1.86 eV and -0.57 eV, and the typical core width is about 10 angstrom. The resulting depletion layers have been evaluated using a thermodynamic space-charge model. Space-charge potential barriers between 02 and 0.8 eV were obtained with dopant concentrations of 5% and 10%. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.