Preparation of Magnesia Partially Stabilized Zirconia Nanomaterials from Zirconium Hydroxide and Magnesium Carbonate Precursors Using PEG as a Template

Stabilized zirconia is a promising material due to its great physical and chemical properties, and thermal stability. In this work, MgO was used as a stabilizer in ZrO2 to obtain Magnesia Partially Stabilized Zirconia (MSZ) nanomaterials assisted with PEG as a template through conventional mixing process. Zirconium hydroxides prepared from local zircon and MgCO3 were used as MSZ precursors. Meanwhile, the stabilizer concentration was varied from 1 to 4 wt% of ZrO2. The effect of the stabilizer concentration and the calcination temperature to the crystallinity and the morphological properties of the MSZ nanoparticles were studied using X-ray diffraction and scanning and transmission electron microscopy. The ZrO2 content in the zirconium hydroxides precursors is accounting 89.52 wt% of the total and exhibits the dominant m-phase at 1000 °C. Meanwhile, the tetragonal and the monoclinic phases were formed in all MSZ samples at a temperature of 800–1000 °C. The as-synthesized MSZ samples show typical FT-IR spectra, consisting of the metal–oxygen bonds at below 500 cm−1 and the organic functional groups ranging at 1000–3000 cm−1. The ZrO2 morphologies exhibit spherical-like shapes with elongated agglomeration at 800 °C. In addition, the average particle sizes of the final product ranges from 20 to 50 nm. At a sintering temperature of 1500 °C, MSZ samples show the monoclinic phase of ZrO2 and densities in the range of 3.95–4.14 g/cm3.