Low-temperature and flexible strategy to in-situ fabricate ZrSiO4-based ceramic composites via doping and tuning solid-state reaction

Synthetic zircon (ZrSiO4) ceramics are typically fabricated at elevated temperatures (over 1500 degrees C), which would lead to high manufacturing cost. Meanwhile, reports about preparing ZrSiO4-based ceramic composites via controlling the solid-state reaction between zirconia (ZrO2) and silica (SiO2) are limited. In this work, we proposed a low-temperature strategy to flexibly design and fabricate ZrSiO4-based ceramic composites via doping and tuning the solid-state reaction. Two ceramic composites and ZrSiO4 ceramics were in-situ prepared by reactive fast hot pressing (FHP) at approximately 1250 degrees C based on the proposed strategy, i.e., a ZrSiO4-SiO2 dual-phase composite with bicontinuous interpenetrating and hierarchical microstructures, a ZrSiO4-ZrO2 dual-phase composite with a microstructure of ZrO2 submicron- and nano-particles embedded in a micron ZrSiO4 matrix, and ZrSiO4 ceramics with a small amount of residual ZrO2 nanoparticles. The results showed that the phase compositions, microstructure configurations, mechanical properties, and wear resistance of the materials can be flexibly regulated by the proposed strategy. Hence, ZrSiO4-based ceramic composites with different properties can be easily fabricated based on different application scenarios. These findings would offer useful guidance for researchers to flexibly fabricate ZrSiO4-based ceramic composites at low temperatures and tailor their microstructures and properties through doping and tuning the solid-state reaction.