Synthesis of Yttria Stabilized Zirconia by Sol-gel Precipitation Using PEG and PVA as Stabilizing Agent

There is increasing interest in zirconia as a dental material due to its aesthetics, as well as the exceptionally high fracture toughness and high strength that are on offer when it is alloyed with certain oxides like yttria. In recent years, many solution based chemical synthesis methods have been reported for synthesis of zirconia, of which the sol-gel method is considered to be best. Here, we synthesize zirconia by a sol gel assisted precipitation method using either PEG or PVA as a stabilizing agent. Zirconia sol is first synthesized using the hydrothermal method. We used NaOH as the precipitating agent in this method because it is easy to remove from the final solution. Zirconium and yttrium salts are used as precursors and PEG or PVA are used as stabilizers to separate the metal ions. The resulting amorphous zirconia powder is calcined at $900^{\circ}C$ for 2 h to get crystallized zirconia. XRD analysis confirmed the partially stabilized zirconia synthesis in all the synthesized powders. SEM was taken to check the morphology of the powder synthesized using either PEG or PVA as a stabilizing agent and finally the transparency was calculated. The results confirmed that the powder synthesized with 10 % PVA as the stabilizing agent had highest percentage of transparency among all the synthesized powder.