Lot of research activities took place to overcome the catastrophic failure of the engineering ceramic material. Different structure stabilizing agents like magnesium oxide, calcium oxide, yttrium oxide and cerium oxide are added to the precursor material so as to obtain a homogeneous distribution of stabilizing ions in the crystal structure of zirconia.
The addition of stabilizing oxides helps the high temperature polymorphs to not undergo transformation to the mono clinic phase below the transition temperature. Dopants when added help to achieve partially stabilized zirconia called as PSZ or fully stabilised zirconia called as FSZ.
The extent of distribution of the dopants in the zirconia matrix mainly depends on the techniques of the precursor materials. The production of precursor materials thus becomes an important preparation technique in zirconia powder preparation process.
To be contd…
