MICROWAVE-HYDROTHERMAL SYNTHESIS OF NANOSTRUCTURED Pr-DOPED ZIRCONIA
POWDERS, F. Bondioli, A.M. Ferrari, C. Leonelli, G.C. Pellacani,
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Engineering, University of Modena
and Reggio Emilia, Tadeusz Chudoba, Agnieszka Opalinska, Adam Presz,
Witold Lojkowski, High Pressure Research Center, Polish Academy of
Sciences, Sokolowska 29, 01-142 Warsaw, Poland.
A recent innovation to the hydrothermal method, a very attractive
process to directly prepare submicrometer- and nanometer- sized
crystalline powders characterized by reduced contamination and low
synthesis temperature, is the introduction of microwaves to increase
the kinetics by 1-2 orders of magnitude. Aim of this work has been
evaluated the effect of synthesis conditions, such as solution pH,
concentration of ions, temperature and reaction time, on the formation
of the zironia praseodymia solid solution (Pr content = 0, 0.5, 1, 5
and 10 mol%). The doping ion, praseodymium, was chosen for the
technologically importance of the resulting solid solution since it
can be used as an oxygen storage material.
Powder properties, including crystalline phase, crystallite size, particle
size distribution and degree of agglomeration, have been evalueted by using
transmission electron microscopy (TEM), x-ray diffraction (XRD) and
multipoint BET techniques.
|