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Advanced Materials Processing and Analysis Center (AMPAC) and Mechanical, Materials, and
Aerospace Engineering Department (MMAE), 4000 Central Florida Blvd.,
University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816, U.S.A.
| Nanocrystalline as well as submicron-sized tetragonal-zirconia (ZrO2) particles have been successfully synthesized using the sol-gel technique utilizing hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPC) as a polymeric steric stabilizer. The synthesized ZrO2 particles are characterized using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and x-ray diffraction (XRD) to determine the nanocrystallite size and crystal structure respectively. The ZrO2 particles of size 200-300 nm and 15-20 nm, having tetragonal crystal structure, are obtained under the processing conditions R=5, [HPC]=0.0 g/L and R=30, [HPC]=2.0 g/L respectively. Large R-value and high HPC concentration are observed to be conducive for synthesizing nanocrystalline tetragonal ZrO2 particles. The stabilization of metastable tetragonal phase in nanocrystalline ZrO2 is the result of minimizing the surface energy. |
full paper (pdf, 400 Kb)