In many applications of functional oxides originally homogeneous materials are exposed to gradients in the chemical potential of oxygen. Prominent examples are solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) or oxygen permeation membranes (OPMs). Other thermodynamic potential gradients are gradients of electrical potential, temperature or uni-axial pressure. The applied gradients act as generalized thermodynamic forces and induce directed fluxes of the mobile components. These fluxes may lead to three basic degradation phenomena of the materials, which are kinetic demixing, kinetic decomposition, and morphological instabilities.