Well-dispersed YBCO in acetone via planetary milling

Nanoscale powder preparation is key to achieving well-dispersed and stable ceramic suspensions. In synthesizing solid compounds, high energy ball milling (HEBM) stands out as one of the most effective and widely-used particle size reduction technique in different industries and various types of materials. This study reports the production of nano-sized Y-Ba-Cu-O (YBCO) powders through high energy planetary ball milling coupled with wet milling approach. Milled YBCO powders were used to manipulate the suspension kinetics and electrophoretic properties of a YBCO-acetone suspension to produce a uniformly-dense as-deposited (green) film. The structural changes attributed to the crystalline-to-amorphous transformation of the milled YBCO powders were also investigated. Varying the milling speed from 400 to 800 rpm, results showed that milling YBCO at 800 rpm for 3h gives the highest degree of amorphization and the smallest average particle size of 250 nm. Further, iodine addition was shown to improve the suspension stability of the YBCO-acetone system with a zeta potential of 45 mV.