TITLE:
Preparation of Bi4Ti3O12 (BIT) Ceramics via a High-Energy Ball Milling Process Doped with Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes (MWNTs)
AUTHORS:
Alexandre Gonçalves Pinheiro, Gilberto Dantas Saraiva, Josué Mendes Filho, Antonio Sergio Bezerra Sombra
KEYWORDS:
Bi4Ti3O12 Ceramics; Ferroelectric; High-Energy Ball Milling; Sintering; Carbon Nanotubes; MWNT
JOURNAL NAME:
Materials Sciences and Applications,
Vol.4 No.9,
September
12,
2013
ABSTRACT: We prepared the Nano-sized bismuth titanate Bi4Ti3O12 (BIT) powders, through a high-energy ball milling process from their oxides Bi2O3 and TiO2. This BIT phase can be formed after a milling process for 40 min. With an increasing milling time, this particle size of mixture is gradually reduced, thus, we have mostly an amorphous phase. The BIT ceramics were duly obtained by sintering the synthesized powders at temperatures ranging from 850°C to 1000°C. The BIT ceramics sintered at 1020°C for 1 h, exhibiting a density with 7.52 g/cm3 of a crystaline phase and a dielectric of K = 288.11 (100 Hz), as well as a dielectric loss of 0.05 (100 kHz). The High-energy ball milling process is a promising way to prepare BIT ceramics. After the preparation of the BIT, we doped it with the Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes which are properly obtained by a chemical vapour deposition (CVD), using nickel as a catalyst, as well as using acetilene at 720°C, and then proceeded with the dielectric and optical measurements.