Low-temperature and flexible strategy to <i>in-situ</i> fabricate ZrSiO <sub>4</sub>-based ceramic composites via doping and tuning solid-state reaction
Bohan Wang, Le Fu, Junjie Song, Wenjun Yu, Ying Deng, Guofu Xu, Jiwu Huang, Wei Xia
Abstract
Synthetic zircon (ZrSiO<sub>4</sub>) ceramics are typically fabricated at elevated temperatures (over 1500 ºC), which would lead to high manufacturing cost. Meanwhile, reports about preparing ZrSiO<sub>4</sub>-based ceramic composites via controlling the solid-state reaction between ZrO<sub>2</sub> and SiO<sub>2 </sub>are limited. In this work, we proposed a low-temperature strategy to flexibly design and fabricate ZrSiO<sub>4</sub>-based ceramic composites via doping and tuning the solid-state reaction. Two ceramic composites and one ceramic were <em>in situ</em> prepared by reactive fast hot pressing (FHP) at approximately 1250 ºC based on the proposed strategy, i.e., a ZrSiO<sub>4</sub>-SiO<sub>2</sub> dual-phase composite with a bicontinuous interpenetrating and hierarchical microstructure, a ZrSiO<sub>4</sub>-ZrO<sub>2</sub> dual-phase composite with a microstructure of ZrO<sub>2</sub> submicron- and nano-particles embedded in a micron ZrSiO<sub>4</sub> matrix, and a ZrSiO<sub>4</sub> ceramic with a small amount of residual ZrO<sub>2</sub> nanoparticles. Results showed that phase compositions, microstructure configurations, mechanical properties, and wear resistance of the materials can be flexibly regulated by the proposed strategy. Hence, ZrSiO<sub>4</sub>-based ceramic composites with different properties can be easily fabricated based on different application scenarios. These findings would offer useful guidance for researchers to flexibly fabricate ZrSiO<sub>4</sub>-based ceramic composites at low temperatures and tailor their microstructures and properties through doping and tuning the solid-state reaction.