Insight into the effect of Nd2O3 and CeO2 co-doped Gd2Zr2O7 ceramics without structural design: Phase evolution and chemical durability

Abstract

A series of Nd and Ce co-doped Gd2Zr2O7 ceramics were synthesized without structural design. Phase evolutions, microstructure, element distributions, mechanical and chemical durability with different Nd and Ce co-doped amounts were investigated. The samples were transformed from ordered pyrochlore to disorder fluorite structure with the increase of co-doped amount. The Nd and Ce co-doped have an impact on the disorder degree of the Nd1Ce4 and Nd1Ce8 samples. The Nd1Ce8 shows the highest Vickers hardness value among the 80 wt% co-doped amount samples. Through chemical durability analysis, it can be found that the Nd1Ce4 and Nd1Ce8 samples with 80 wt% co-doped amount possess excellent chemical stability.