Al2O3-3YTZP-Graphene multilayers produced by tape casting and spark plasma sintering

This work aims to establish a colloidal route to obtain laminates of alumina zirconia combining layers with and without graphene. Green tapes of alumina, alumina with 5 vol.% of 3Y-TZP and alumina with 5 vol.% of 3Y-TZP and graphene-oxide (2 vol.%) were obtained by aqueous tape casting. It is possible to design materials for different structural applications with a controlled microstructure with a high number of different layers. The tapes were punched into 20-mm discs, joined to form laminates alternating up to 18-layers, and sintered in one-step by spark plasma sintering (SPS) at 1400 degrees C. It has demonstrated that there is a significant graphite diffusion provoked by the required graphite holders into the SPS-furnace. Dense laminates with layer thicknesses similar to 100 mu m and good cohesion between layers were obtained. Nanoindentation results showed that hardness and elastic modulus values were higher than 27 GPa and 300 GPa, respectively, and similar for all layers. Crown Copyright (C) 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This work has been supported by Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiviness (MAT2012-31090). A. S. A. Chinelatto thanks to CAPES - Programa Ciencias sem Fronteiras (Brazil) for the concession of a fellowship for post-doctoral sabbatical grant in ICV-CSIC, Spain. A. Borrell, acknowledges the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for her Juan de la Cierva contract (JCI-2011-10498) and the Generalitat Valenciana by the financial support for the BEST/2012/302 grant. Authors thank to Nanoinnova Technologies (Spain) for supplying the graphene oxide and helpful discussions. Rincón, A.; Moreno, R.; Chinelatto, ASA.; Gutierrez-Gonzalez, CF.; Rayón Encinas, E.; Salvador Moya, MD.; Borrell Tomás, MA. (2014). Al2O3-3YTZP-Graphene multilayers produced by tape casting and spark plasma sintering. Journal of the European Ceramic Society. 34(10):2427-2434. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeurceramsoc.2014.02.011