Sintering effects on Ceramics

The main core of this research work is to analyze the temperature effects on the sintering of some important and technologically useful ceramic materials. High temperature solid state reaction method and chemical routes such as sol-gel methods are used to synthesize the following ceramic materials;

(i) ZnO (ii) NiO (iii) SnO2 (iv) Zn1-xMnxO (Mn doped ZnO, with 2 compositions of Mn such as x=0.03 and x=0.06) (v) Ni1-xLixO (Li doped NiO, with 2 compositions of Li such as x=0.03 and x=0.06) (vi) Sn1-xNixO2 (Ni doped SnO2, with 2 compositions of Ni such as x=0.03 and x=0.06(vi) Sn1-xFexO2 (Fe doped SnO2, with 2 compositions of Fe such as x=0.03 and x=0.06.

There are many important applications of ceramic materials, for example, materials like FeO and NiO are antiferromagnetic. The sintering of the samples under different temperature has been used as criterion for studying such antiferromagnetic systems.

The analysis of interior structures of these ceramics is very important to determine their properties. Hence, the atomic level (the structural determination, bonding etc.) and the electronic level (electron densities) characterizations have been carried out using XRD experimental data. Suitable and highly versatile mathematical tools are used for these types of analysis on interior structure of ceramic materials. Other characterization techniques have been used for the    (1) confirmation of growth of appropriate samples (Powder XRD) (2) the composition of the grown materials ( EDAX/ICP-AES) (3) the determination of optical properties, band gap (UV-VIS,IR,Raman) (4) Microstructure (SEM/FESEM) (5) dielectric properties (BDS) (6) magnetic properties if magnetic elements are present in the grown doped systems (VSM).