Sintering Behaviour of Ceria Stabilized Zirconia for Dental Applications

Abstract

Zirconia (ZrO2) based ceramic materials, owing to their excellent mechanical properties (compressive strength of 2000 MPa), biocompatibility, low plaque affinity and hydrophobicity, have been considered advantageous in manufacturing of medical devices. Ceria-stabilized zirconia (CSZ) has garnered significant interest in dental applications. Understanding the sintering behavior of CSZ is critical for optimizing its properties and ensuring its suitability for dental prostheses. In this study CSZ powder was sintered using solid-state sintering process and cold sintering process. The effects of two stage sintering process was compared with single step sintering process. In cold sintering process, CSZ powder was moistened with water followed by uniaxially pressed under 330 MPa, and then the temperature was increased up to 180˚C for 10 min. Both the cold sintered samples and solid state sintered samples were further sintered at 1550 ˚C for different holding times. The sintered samples were further characterized including X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and mechanical testing (density, hardness). The Cold sintered samples showed better sintering density than the solid state sintered samples. Vicker’s hardness of cold sintered and solid state sintered samples were 8.19 GPa and 5.88 GPa, respectively. The higher hardness cold sintered CSZ was due to finer microstructure.