Dear Mohammed,

The following paper might be helpful in answering your question. Unfortunately, I do not have the full paper, however, I have read its abstract and it seems to be relevant to the question.

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Volume 91, Issue 10

October 2008

Pages 3173–3180

Synthesis and Pressureless Sintering of Zirconium Phosphate Ceramics

Authors

Fei Chen,

Qiang Shen,

Julie M. Schoenung,

Lianmeng Zhang

First published: 12 August 2008Full publication history

DOI: 10.1111/j.1551-2916.2008.02610.xView/save citation

Cited by: 6 articlesRefreshcitation countCiting literature

P. Brown—contributing editor

This work is supported by the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University of China (Grant NCET-05-0661). The authors also wish to acknowledge financial support from grant N00014-08-1-0569 from the U.S. Office of Naval Research.

†Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

Zirconium phosphate (ZrP2O7) powder is synthesized by direct reaction between ZrO2 and H3PO4and is used to prepare ZrP2O7 ceramics with MgO and Al2O3 as the sintering additives by pressureless sintering technique. The mechanism of reaction between ZrO2 and H3PO4 is analyzed. The results suggest that the reaction between ZrO2 and H3PO4 is completed at 250°C and ZrP2O7 is stable up to ∼1200°C. At temperatures above ∼1200°C, decomposition starts to occur, resulting in the formation of Zr2O(PO4)2. After exposure to temperatures as high as 1500°C, decomposition is still not complete. The pure ZrP2O7 ceramic, however, is difficult to sinter to high density. In contrast, ZrP2O7 ceramics with MgO and Al2O3 sintering additives can be liquid-phase sintered to relative densities of 90%–96% at sintering temperatures of 1250°–1500°C, without significant decomposition. The microstructure is observed by scanning electron microscopy. The effect of density, phosphate glass phase, and grain growth on bending strength is analyzed. Because of the abnormal grain growth and microcracking of ZrP2O7 ceramics, the bending strength first increases and then decreases as a function of the sintering temperature.

Hoping this will be helpful,

Rafik

Thanks. I have read the paper, am actually adapting the sol-gel approach used in the paper. It didn't say much to guide this finding. I know the crystal structure of MZP is Monoclinic at 1173K.