Crystallite growth in thoria-10 mol% yttria

The non-crystallinity of the powders obtained at low calcination temperatures, as indicated by the reciprocal of the average crystallite size obtained by X-ray line broadening, constitutes a part of the driving force for their sintering. Even though the importance of this parameter in bringing about sintering of oxide powers has been emphasized in many works, the kinetics of crystallite growth has not been studied much in detail. In the present work a mathematical relationship between the crystallite size, time and temperature of calcination has been established for thoria-10 mol% yttria solid solution. (author)