Effect of Nickel Concentration on Stabilisation of Tetragonal Zirconia

The present work deals with effect of particle size, concentration of nickel, and calcination temperature on the enhancement of tetragonal zirconia nanopowders. Nanocrystalline tetragonal zirconia is commercially very significant material which finds extensive use as an anode material in SOFC, as a catalyst oxygen sensor and structural material. In the present project work, nanocrystalline zirconia powders were prepared by co-precipitation technique. This technique is very helpful for the promotion of the stabilization of t-phase of $ZrO_2$ at nano level at moderate temperature which is one of the primary objectives of this project. Here the main objective is to stabilize the $t-ZrO_2$ through precipitation route using NH4OH.The concentration of nickel-salt plays an important role for the enhancement of stabilized tetragonal phase at moderate temperature. From XRD results it has been concluded that stabilization of $t-ZrO_2$ was better for 20 mol% nickel-salt concentration as compared with 40 mol% Ni-salt at the same temperature