Modification of barium aluminosilicate glass-ceramics with zirconium oxide additives

Abstract

Barium aluminosilicate glass-ceramics modified with zirconium oxide (ZrO2) in the presence and without of stabilizing yttrium oxide was synthesized by the sol-gel method. The influence of the concentration of zirconium oxide on gelation, phase formation and sintering of materials were investigated. It was found that modification with zirconium oxide leads to a reduction in the gelation time of the initial solutions. It was shown that the introduction of ZrO2 in an amount of up to 10 wt.% leads to the intensification of sintering of glass-ceramics. However, with a further increase in the ZrO2 content to 15 wt.%, it is necessary to increase the sintering temperature to 1600°C. But this is not permissible, since it leads to not a desired metastable phase – hexacylsian becoming predominant in all samples. Only glass-ceramics modified with 10 wt.% ZrO2 contains only the monocelsian phase in the entire sintering temperature range. The use of the sol-gel method made it possible to synthesize glass-ceramics with a fine-crystalline structure and a uniform volume distribution of ZrO2 grains.