Crystallization and microstructural characterization of ZrO2 (3 mol%Y2O3) nano-sized powders with various Al2O3 contents

摘要

3Y-ZrO2 gels containing 0-40 mol% Al 0 wereobtained by a sol-gel process with isopropoxide precursors.Crystallization behaviorand microstructural characterization of the dried gels and calcinedpowders were studied by DSC, in situ XRD and TEM. The peaktemperature of the exotherm corresponded to crystallization of gelsin DSC and the activation energy for the crystallization increasedwith an increase of Al 0 content. From the XRD analysis includingthe estimation of lattice parameter, the crystallized phase wasconfirmed as a solid solution of the tetragonal ZrO2 with Al2 03.Examination by TEM and EDX showed that the powder mixturesafter calcination consisted of the homogeneous and very finegrains with the size less than 10 nm.