Studies on process development and property evaluation of nanoscale zirconia minispheres and fibres by sol gel route

Abstract

In recent years nanotechnology has been expanding at a rapid rate globally in research innovation development and industrial activities Nanofibre and minisphere are some of the emerging material design to be used in versatile applications due to their better compatible performance It is evident from the literature that the nanoparticles and nanopowders prepared using sol gel process offer a wide range of innovative and better products Sol gel processing facilitates the preparation of nanofibres and ultrafine minispheres in nano crystalline level which are suitable for diverse applications Nanofibres and minispheres prepared using zirconia play a major role in the field of nanotechnology Even though zirconia has excellent properties like thermal and chemical stability high strength and fracture toughness high corrosion resistance etc their conductivity is inferior Doping of zirconia with metals is the possible option to enhance the conductance for their better performance In the literature review there is no related evidence for the preparation of metal dopants based zirconia nanofibres and minispheres with a variety of concentrations and hybridizationThus the present research work deals with the preparation and characterization of zirconia in the form of nanofibres and minispheres with copper and iron used as metal dopants individually with varying concentrations and also in hybrid combination A novel processing route based on sol gel method using the electrospinning and freeze drying processes have been utilized for the preparation of nanofibres and minispheres respectively As prepared green bodies of nanofibres and minispheres are calcinated and characterized to compare them with the undoped and uncalcinated samples newline