Synthesis of aluminium titanate by means of isostructural heterogeneous nucleation

Abstract The synthesis of tialite was carried out by means of the solid state reaction technique using heterogeneous nucleation. The influence of the temperature of synthesis and simultaneous sintering (1250–1350 °C) on the yield of reaction and densification of the systems was investigated. Reference samples, consisting of stoichiometric mixture of titanium and aluminium oxides as well as the samples containing such additives as MgO, SiO 2 and MgTi 2 O 5 were prepared. Applying the DSC analysis the synthesis temperatures of systems differing in the substrate composition were determined. The phase composition of synthesis products was determined by means of XRD analysis combined with Rietveld's method. The density of the obtained materials was determined by the Archimedes method. SEM observations enabled microstructures and homogeneity of sinters to be compared. On the basis of the conducted research it was found that using oxide additives containing magnesium cations allows the synthesis efficiency exceeding 95% as early as at the temperature of characterized by a homogeneous microstructure with a lower number and a smaller size of microcracks.