Zirconia fluorite

Other refractory oxides that can be deposited by CVD have excellent thermal stability and oxidation resistance. Some, like alumina and yttria, are also good barriers to oxygen diffusion providing that they are free of pores and cracks. Many however are not, such as zirconia, hafnia, thoria, and ceria. These oxides have a fluorite structure, which is a simple open cubic structure and is particularly susceptible to oxygen diffusion through ionic conductivity. The diffusion rate of oxygen in these materials can be considerable. 

Four solid oxide electrolyte systems have been studied in detail and used as oxygen sensors. These are based on the oxides zirconia, thoria, ceria and bismuth oxide. In all of these oxides a high oxide ion conductivity could be obtained by the dissolution of aliovalent cations, accompanied by the introduction of oxide ion vacancies. The addition of CaO or Y2O3 to zirconia not only increases the electrical conductivity, but also stabilizes the fluorite structure, which is unstable with respect to the tetragonal structure at temperatures below 1660 K. The tetragonal structure transforms to the low temperature monoclinic structure below about 1400 K and it is because of this transformation that the pure oxide is mechanically unstable, and usually shatters on cooling. The addition of CaO stabilizes the fluorite structure at all temperatures, and because this removes the mechanical instability the material is described as stabilized zirconia (Figure 7.2). 

The parent structure of the anion-deficient fluorite structure phases is the cubic fluorite structure (Fig. 4.7). As in the case of the anion-excess fluorite-related phases, diffraction patterns from typical samples reveals that the defect structure is complex, and the true defect structure is still far from resolved for even the most studied materials. For example, in one of the best known of these, yttria-stabilized zirconia, early studies were interpreted as suggesting that the anions around vacancies were displaced along < 111 > to form local clusters, rather as in the Willis 2 2 2 cluster described in the previous section, Recently, the structure has been described in terms of anion modulation (Section 4.10). In addition, simulations indicate that oxygen vacancies prefer to be located as second nearest neighbors to Y3+ dopant ions, to form triangular clusters (Fig. 4.11). Note that these suggestions are not... 

A number of oxides with the fluorite structure are used in solid-state electrochemical systems. They have formulas A02 xCaO or A02 xM203, where A is typically Zr, Hf, and Th, and M is usually La, Sm, Y, Yb, or Sc. Calcia-stabilized zirconia, ZrC)2.xCaO, typifies the group. The technological importance of these materials lies in the fact that they are fast ion conductors for oxygen ions at moderate temperatures and are stable to high temperatures. This property is enhanced by the fact that there is negligible cation diffusion or electronic conductivity in these materials, which makes them ideal for use in a diverse variety of batteries and sensors. 

The parent phase is a stoichiometric oxide M02 with the fluorite structure. Substitution of a lower valence cation for Zr4+ is compensated by oxygen vacancies (Section 1.11.6 and Section 4.4.5). Taking calcia-stabilized zirconia as an example, addition of CaO drops the metal to oxygen ratio to below 2.0, and the formula of the oxide becomes Ca Zrj -x02-x. 

The maximum conductivity of fluorite-structured oxygen ion conductors is not only a function of dopant concentration, but also of dopant radius [9], For stabilized zirconia, the conductivity increases as the radius becomes close to that of Zr4 (rvm = 0.084 nm). The best value is reached for Sc3+ (rvlll = 0.087 nm) with a conductivity of 0.1 Scnr1 at 800°C for (ScjC o. ZrO o. ). For the sake of comparison,... 

CeOj and ThOj have the cubic fluorite structure. Fig. 2.15, and can be doped with large amounts of, for example, Ca, La or Gd to give extensive ranges of cubic solid solutions. ZrOj is cubic only above 2400°C, however, and requires 8% of dopant to stabilise the cubic form to room temperature (as in YSZ, yttria-stabilised zirconia). 

Stabilized zirconia refers to a solid solution of zirconium oxide with one or more of a number of stabilizing oxides (CaO, MgO, 20, or others) to form a cubic fluorite structure. This... 

The hosts for ACT and REE immobilization are phases with a fluorite-derived structure (cubic zirconia-based solid solutions, pyrochlore, zirco-nolite, murataite), and zircon. The REEs and minor ACTs may be incorporated in perovskite, monazite, apatite-britholite, and titanite. Perovskite and titanite are also hosts for Sr, whereas hollandite is a host phase for Cs and corrosion products. None of these ceramics is truly a single-phase material, and other phases such as silicates (pyroxene, nepheliiie, plagioclase), oxides (spinel, hibonite/loveringite, crichtonite), or phosphates may be present and incorporate some radionuclides and process contaminants. A brief description of the most important phases suitable for immobilization of ACTs and REEs is given below. 

Cubic fluorite-structure (Fm3m) zirconia-based solid solution, (Zr,ACT,REE)02 x, exhibi ts significant compositional flexibility to incorporate high concentrations of Pu, neutron absorbers, and impurities contained in Pu-bearing wastes (Gong et al. 1999). The phase has excellent radiation stability. No amorphization was observed under ion irradiation at room temperature to a dose corresponding to 200 dpa, and at 20 K to a dose of 25 dpa. Irradiation with I+ and Sr+ up to 300 dpa produced defect clusters in Y-stabilized zirconia, but did not cause amorphization. Amorphization... 

Yttria-stabilized zirconia f[Zrlj YJ02, /2) is known in the literature as YSZ and has a fluorite-type structure [67] (see Figure 2.16). This material has a high oxygen ion conductivity and is, therefore, applied as a high-temperature electrolyte material, for example, in high-temperature fuel cells [68,73],... 

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