Cold sintering and electric characterization of ZnO-BaTiO₃ composites

Abstract

The sintering is an essential step in the processing of ceramics materials. A number of researchers have reported new techniques for sintering. However, in general, the process still demands high temperatures. This paper reports the results of the cold sintering of ZnO-BaTiO₃ composites. The microstructural, structural, and electric properties of the composite were studied. We obtained high densities (>95%) for pure ZnO and for the composition with 10 wt% of BaTiO₃ at a low temperature of sintering (250 °C/1 h). The increase of BaTiO₃ content reduced the grain size and degraded the sinterability of ZnO. The crystalline structure was investigated by X-ray diffraction and confirmed the separation of the phases after the cold sintering. The BaTiO₃ added in the composite reduced the values of conductivity, permittivity, and also the dielectric loss.

Keywords:
ceramics; cold sintering; impedance spectroscopy; dielectrics