Controlling precipitation processes in the production of value-added zirconia

多拉特种化学品公司从华盛顿州开采的锆英砂中生产特种氧化锆产品。在氧化锆中掺入Y和铝等金属可以生产出先进的陶瓷，应用于固体氧化物燃料电池和氧传感器等领域。该项目的目的是在最初的加工步骤中提高对化学的基本理解，以便可以很容易地修改该工艺以生产新的掺杂氧化锆陶瓷，而不需要目前所需的广泛的经验工艺开发。由此产生的快速商业规模生产新组合物的能力将使该行业处于世界领先地位，大幅提高氧化锆产品的附加值。

Doral Specialty Chemicals produces specialised zirconia products from zircon sands mined in WA. Doping the zirconia with metals such as yttrium and aluminium can produce advanced ceramics, with applications in areas such as solid oxide fuel cells and oxygen sensors. The aim of this project is to improve the fundamental understanding of the chemistry in the initial processing steps, so that the process can be readily modified to produce new doped zirconia ceramics, without the extensive empirical process development currently required. The resulting ability to quickly produce new compositions on a commercial scale will put this industry in a world-leading position, dramatically increasing the added value of the zirconia products.