Dense nanostructured zirconia compacts obtained by colloidal filtration of binary mixtures

As starting materials two commercial nanosized zirconias doped with 3 mol% of Y2O3 were used: a powder of about 100 nm (TZ3YE, Tosoh, Japan) and a colloidal suspension of about 15 nm (Mel Chemicals, UK). Colloidal stability in water was studied for both zirconias in terms of zeta potential as a function of deflocculant concentration and pH. Concentrated suspensions were prepared by dispersing the powder in the colloidal suspension to solids loadings ranging from 5 to 30 vol.% using a sonication probe to achieve dispersion. The rheological behavior was optimized in terms of solids content, deflocculant content and sonication time. Optimized suspensions with up to 25 vol.% solids showed a nearly Newtonian behavior and extremely low viscosities and maintain stable for long times (days) which is an important drawback of conventional nanoparticle suspensions. Samples obtained by slip casting in plaster moulds were used for dynamic sintering studies and dense, nanostructured specimens were obtained at temperatures of 1300–1400 °C.