The influence of cerium oxide content on the crack growth in zirconia ceramic materials for engineering applications

• Main Author: Xian-Ming Liu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2021-06-01
• Series: Results in Materials
• Subjects: Composite ceramic materials; Fracture toughness; Zirconia (ZrO₂); Cerium oxide (CeO₂); Cold weld cutter; Mechanics simulation
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590048X21000297

This article proposes a method of using cerium oxide and zirconium oxide to prepare ceramic materials for cold welding equipment in the production of lithium batteries. Injecting ceria and other metal oxides can transform zirconia from martensite into a stable four cubic lattice. By increasing the content of cerium oxide above 9%, the monoclinic crystal is transformed to tetragonal phase, and further increase to 10%–15% is beneficial to transform the tetragonal crystal state or the cubic crystal phase into a complete solid solution. When cooled from a high temperature (2293 °C) to room temperature, ceria-doped zirconia presented a tetragonal phase structure without changing into a monoclinic phase. It was also demonstrated that the crack tip at the front of the material has a shielding effect on the tetragonal phase. In particular, it was found that the flexural strength of the material reached 800 MPa, indicating that the developed zirconia-based ceramic composite material has the ability to replace diamond knives. The current work has confirmed the possibility of obtaining new ceramic materials with different characteristics by reasonably distributing the ingredients and appropriately controlling the content of cerium oxide or other metal oxides.