Role of mixing mediums in the synthesis of single phase CaCu3Ti4O12 (CCTO)

The role of mixing mediums on synthesizing high purity CCTO as a function of calcination temperature was systematically investigated via solid state reaction (SSR) route. The efficacy of the mediums (ethanol, deionised water, distilled water, and dry mix) was primarily determined by X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique and FESEM, respectively. It is found that, a single phase CCTO was successfully synthesized in all mediums, with the deionised water showed the lowest reaction temperature (950 degrees C) to fully crystallize the powder mixtures compared to other mediums. No significant changes were seen in the grain shape since only a bimodal structure with grain size ranging from 0.5 mu m to 2.57 mu m was observed. The effect of media was also seen in their dielectric properties of the calcined powders. Dry mixing (DM) had the highest dielectric permittivity (epsilon(r) = 118) whereas others are only between 59-99. Therefore, this observation proved that mixing medium could influence the formation temperature and dielectric properties of CCTO.