Su, X., Zhou, et al. Ceramics International, 2016, 42(15), 17497-17502.
Yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG, Y3Al5O12) nanopowder was prepared using the polyacrylamide gel method, and the preparation temperature was much lower than the traditional method.
Preparation process
· Aluminum nitrate (Al(NO3)3·9H2O) and yttrium nitrate (Y(NO3)3·6H2O) were used as starting materials.
· In a typical process, aluminum nitrate and yttrium nitrate were first dissolved in deionized water to obtain a solution. The concentrations of Al3+ and Y3+ in the solution were set to 0.05 and 0.03mol/L, respectively.
· Then the monomers acrylamide (AM) and N-methylene bisacrylamide (MBAM) were added to the solution. The concentration of acrylamide was adjusted to 1 mol/L, 3 mol/L and 6 mol/L, respectively.
· After the monomers were completely dissolved, ammonium persulfate ((NH4)2S2O8), which was used as initiator, was added to the uniform solution.
· In all experiments, the molar ratio of acrylamide/N,N'-methylene-bis-acrylamide/ammonium persulfate was maintained at 24/2/1.
· Stir the mixed solution continuously until a clarified solution was obtained. The solution was heated to 80 °C to form a white gel with three-dimensional network structure. The gel was then dried in an 80 °C oven for a few days to form a xerogel.
· Finally, the xerogel was calcined in air at a heating rate of 5 °C/min for 2 hours at different temperatures to obtain YAG nano-powder.