Abstract
Gels were formed in the SiO2-TiO2-ZrO2 system. All of them were amorphous by XRD analysis, even though opaque gels were formed in the compositions range more than 80mol% TiO2 and 60mol% ZrO2, and transparent gels were formed in the rest compositions. Morphology of these particles were observed by SEM. It was found that the opaque gels consisted of spherical particles and the transparent gels consisted of bulk matrix. The opaque gels containing spherical particles were of different degree of agglomeration depending on the compositions. The compositional homogeneity of the particles was confirmed by EDX. It was found that sub micron spherical particles formed during gelation process were aggregated or packed together to form micro-sized spherical particles. Gels were heat treated at 200, 400 and 600°C for 1 hour to study the crystallization behavior.
