Investigation of the crystal growth of CuO from the CuO-Bi2O3 system

The phase diagram of CuO-CuBi2O4 was established by improved thermogravimetric analysis (ITGA), DTA and XRD. The crystallisation temperature of CuO was determined by ITGA and the dependence of crystallisation temperature on cooling rates showed about 20 C supercooling in the crystal growth of CuO from the CuO-Bi2O3 system. Using the theory of crystal growth under stable state conditions, an initial kinetic analysis of seed crystal dissolution was also performed on the ITGA data. Using the phase diagram and the ITGA information, large crystals were grown near the surface of the high-temperature solution or the bottom of the crucible by a combination of ITGA and the top-seeding method. 17 refs.