A facile solvothermal method for high-quality Gd2Zr2O7 nanopowder preparation

A facile solvothermal method has been developed to synthesize Gd2Zr2O7 nanopowders with well-controlled particle size and dispersion. The nanopowders were consolidated into dense ceramic pellets by pressureless sintering, and effects of the solvothermal method in microstructure control are demonstrated by comparison with conventional precipitation approach. X-ray diffraction, electron microscopy, gas adsorption, and a standard operating procedure (SOP) in Malvern Instruments were employed to investigate crystallite/grain sizes and structural morphology evolutions of nanopowders and ceramics. Well-crystallized Gd2Zr2O7 nanopowders with little agglomeration and narrow size distribution synthesized by this method have an average crystallite size of 3.5 nm and high surface area of 162 m2/g. This method also allows the formation of homogeneous and dense Gd2Zr2O7 ceramic with bulk density over 94% of the theoretical value achieved after sintering at 1500 °C for 6 h.