Chemical synthesis and characterization of CexZr1-xO2 powders by a modified sol-gel method

Abstract

CexZr1-xO2 (x = 1, 0.7, 0.4, 0.2, 0) solid solution powders were successfully synthesized by a modified sol-gel method using a simple metal nitrate precursors as sources for cerium and zirconium which do not contain any hazardous and explosive precursor materials. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman spectroscopy analyses revealed the formation of a solid solution depending on the ratio of the two oxides. In the modified sol-gel method, the composition range of the solid solution was wider than that from other methods. When the content of ZrO2 in the compound of CexZr1-xO2 was increased, the crystal structures were maintained as the cubic fluorite structures up to 60mol% of ZrO2 and the cubic phase was still predominant upto 80 mol% of ZrO2. A decrease in the crystallite size and an increase in the BET surface area were observed along with an increase of the Zr content in CexZr1-xO2 solid solutions. The powder morphologies were also investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis.