Preparation of homodispersed nano zirconia

Abstract

Direct precipitation was used to prepare nano zirconia in this experiment. The influences of five experimental parameters upon the mean size, yield and dispersity of the product were investigated via uniform design. These parameters were molar ratio of NH 3·H 2O to ZrOCl 2, C 2H 5OH percentage in reacting and washing solutions, ZrOCl 2 concentration, precipitation temperature and surfactant PEG-800 dosage. The condition experiments demonstrated that C 2H 5OH played a significant role in improving the dispersity of the product in the absence of surfactant PEG-800 and the higher the C 2H 5OH percentage, the better the dispersity. By using C 2H 5OH to dissolve ZrOCl 2·8H 2O and conc. NH 3·H 2O respectively and mixing them, we carried out the precipitation in the C 2H 5OH medium to generate hydroxide precursor, which was filtrated, washed with C 2H 5OH, dried and calcined to form well-dispersed uniform nano zirconia.