Synthesis, characterization and thermal stability of CeO2 stabilized ZrO2 ultra fine nanoparticles via a sol-gel route

CeO2 stabilized ZrO2 ultra fine nanoparticles were successfully synthesized via a simple and effective sol-gel synthetic approach by using zirconylchloride octahydrate, cerium nitrate hexahydrate, and citric acid as starting materials. A series of techniques, including X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetry (TG), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and N2-sorption analysis, were used to characterize the structure and morphology of the as-prepared samples. XRD studies indicate that the as-synthesized sample is of well crystallized tetragonal phase of CeO2 stabilized ZrO2 with high purity. TEM images show that the as-synthesized sample is composed of a large number of fine dispersive nanoparticles with an average size about 10 nm. The as-synthesized tetragonal CeO2 stabilized ZrO2 sample was heated at different temperatures in order to evaluate its thermal stability. The exprimental results reveal that the as-synthesized tetragonal CeO2 stabilized ZrO2 sample exhibits excellent stability without the occurrence of phase transformation.