Abstract
In recent years the superior mechanical, thermal, electrical and chemical properties of stabilized zirconia have become the focus of growing scientific and technological interest, and hence resulted in various structural and functional applications. The great potential of the zirconia has given rise to numerous synthetic approaches to such a material. Among them there was a zirconium acetate precursor route. In this work we have developed a simple metalorganic precipitation process to obtain a zirconium oxy-hydroxy-acetate with the composition and structure significantly different from those previously known. In addition, only by calcining the zirconium oxy-hydroxy-acetate Zr4O3(OH)7(CH3COO)3•5H2O a comparable zirconia can be produced to that formed from zirconium acetate solution either by desiccation and pyrolysis, by boiling under reflux, or by hydrolysis, drying and pyrolysis.
