Influence of environment and grinding on the crystallisation mechanism of ZrO2 gel

The influence of grinding and surrounding atmosphere on the thermal transformations of zirconia gel has been studied. The XRD analysis of the products obtained by thermal decomposition of zirconia gel has shown that pure tetragonal phase is obtained if the gel decomposition is carried out under high vacuum or dry inert atmosphere, while monoclinic zirconia results from the decomposition of the zirconia gel under air or inert gas saturated with water vapour. A mechanism for the thermal crystallisation of zirconia gel has been proposed from the study of the variation of the crystal size of the monoclinic and tetragonal zirconia phases formed as a function of the temperature and the surrounding atmosphere.The thermal decomposition of ground zirconia leads to the formation of ZrO2 with a percentage of tetragonal phase closed to 90% irrespectively of the surrounding atmosphere. The stabilisation of the tetragonal phase by grinding seems to be connected with the formation of tetragonal zirconia nuclei that cannot be observed by XRD. The crystallisation enthalpy measurements carried out by DSC support this conclusion.