The Use of Liquid Mixing Method to Prepare Ilmenite Structure-Based Ceramic Powders

Ilmenite structure-based ceramics such as MgTiO3, ZnTiO3 and FeTiO3 have become important materials in ceramic industries. One of them is for microwave dielectric resonator and oscillator applications on radar systems for MgTiO3 and ZnTiO3, and for spintronic device applications for the wide band gab antiferromagnetic semiconductor FeTiO3. The conventional solid-state reaction method has been widely utilized to prepare the ilmenite ceramic powders due to its practicability in industrial applications. In spite of its recognition, this method still has some shortcomings. Some of these are requiring high calcination temperatures (> 1000 °C), the use of very intensive milling causes granules of powder to coagulate with varying sizes in several micro meters that gives rise to inhomogeneity in the final product. The co-presence of intermediate phases such as Mg2TiO4, MgTi2O5, and Zn2TiO4 on the calcined MgTiO3 and ZnTiO3 powders may inhibit the dielectric properties of the ceramics, thus detrimental in industrial applications. As an alternative, a facile route of liquid mixing method was introduced to synthesize the ilmenite MgTiO3, FeTiO3 and ZnTiO3 powders at much lower calcination temperatures, i.e.340 and 500-550 °C and that of free of intermediate phase presence. This paper reports the performance of liquid mixing method on synthesis of the above three ilmenite ceramic powders as examined using TGA-DTA and XRD data.