Preparation and characterization of BaTiO3 powders and ceramics by sol-gel process using decanedioic acid

The BaTiO3 xerogels, powders and ceramics were prepared through the sol-gel process using two kinds of organic acid (decanoic acid and decanedioic acid). The xerogels, powders and ceramics were characterized by the methods of thermal analysis, FT-IR, XRD, SEM and TEM. The dielectric properties of the ceramics were also measured. The results indicated that the powders calcined at 900 degrees C for 2 h were both pure BaTiO3 phase partly consisted of tetrahedron BaTiO3. The powders were both nanometer scale particles. After sintering, the ceramics mainly consisted of the tetrahedron BaTiO3 phase. Compared with the powders prepared using monoacid, the particle size of the powders prepared using diacid obviously increased, and as well as the grain size, the relative density and the whole permittivity of the ceramics increased. Specially, the ceramic prepared using decanedioic acid had higher relative density (97.1%), room temperature permittivity (3270) and lower dielectric loss (0.018). (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.