Metal oxide powder synthesized with amorphous metal chelates

Chelate powder consisting of amorphous particles was synthesized through the process in which the droplet of the chelate solution is dried in the gas phase and solidified in a moment using a splay-dry technique. To investigate the advantage of the use of amorphous chelate powder in the processing of metal oxide powder, this study provides following two routes: a conventional route of mechanically mixing of crystalline metal-ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) powders and spray-dry mixing of metal-EDTA. These routes were followed by calcinations of metal-EDTA powder to form metal oxide powder. In this study, morphology, crystallization and metal composition of resulting (Ba, Sr) TiO3 and YBa2Cu3O7 powders were investigated. The amorphous metal-EDTA powder involving several metal elements is appropriate for successful calcination at lower temperatures rather than the mixture of crystalline powders prepared by mechanically mixing. (C) 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers.