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Investigations of phase composition and grain size distribution in Pr doped ZrO2

Agnieszka Opalińska 1Roman Pielaszek 1Cristina Leonelli 2Witold Łojkowski 1Tomasz Wejrzanowski 3Hubert Matysiak 3

1. Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of High Pressure Physics (UNIPRESS), Sokolowska 29/37, Warszawa 01-142, Poland
2. University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Via Campi 183, Modena 41100, Italy
3. Warsaw University of Technology, Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering (InMat), Wołoska 141, Warszawa 02-507, Poland

Abstract

A high pressure microwave reactor, i.e., a reactor where microwave energy is used to heat the fluids inside the high pressure cell was used to study the hydrothermal synthesis of zirconia doped with praseodymium (Pr content 1 mol%) in temperature range was from 210 to 305oC. Nanopowders with average grain size in the range of 10 nm were obtained.

A mixture of nanoparticles with tetragonal and monoclinic phase structure was obtained. A new method to determine the grain size distribution, which is based on analysis of the fine structure of the X-ray diffraction line profiles, was applied. It was found that the content of the monoclinic phase decreased with increasing synthesis pressure up to 8 MPa due to dissolution or transformation of grains of smaller diameter than about 12 nm.

Keywords: Hydrothermal synthesis; Microwave; High Pressure; Zirconia; Praseodymium; Grain Size Distribution
 

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Presentation: Poster at COST action D32 Mid term evaluation meeting, by Witold Łojkowski
See On-line Journal of COST action D32 Mid term evaluation meeting

Submitted: 2006-03-21 23:35
Revised:   2009-06-07 00:44