Study of crystallization behavior and kinetics of yttria-50 vol% magnesia composite nanopowders using a non-isothermal process

Abstract

In this paper, yttria-magnesia composite nanopowders with high specific surface area were synthesized by the sol–gel method. The crystallization kinetics of MgO–Y2O3 composite nanopowders were studied by the non-isothermal differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) technique. The crystallization activation energy of MgO–Y2O3 composite nanopowder was obtained 106.41 kJ/mol. The Avrami exponent (n) was 2.96 that corresponded to the three-dimensional growth. As-synthesized MgO–Y2O3 composite nanopowder had the average particle size of 10–15 nm with 140.42 m2/g specific surface area. The FESEM results showed that MgO and Y2O3 phases had a uniform phase distribution in the MgO–Y2O3 composite.