Facile synthesis of high-entropy zirconate nanopowders and their sintering behaviors

The challenge in synthesizing high-entropy ceramic (HEC) nanopowders is to suppress severe grain coarsening and particle agglomeration, which occur at elevated temperatures. This challenge could be addressed by the polyacrylamide gel method. In this work, single-phase high-entropy (La_0.2Nd_0.2Sm_0.2Gd_0.2Yb_0.2)₂Zr₂O₇ and (La_0.2Nd_0.2Y_0.2Eu_0.2Gd_0.2)₂Zr₂O₇ nanopowders without agglomeration were successfully synthesized using the polyacrylamide gel method for the first time. The results showed that phase composition, particle size, and agglomeration degree of the nanopowders were greatly influenced by the molar ratio of acrylamide (AM)/Zr and calcination temperature. These as-synthesized high-entropy zirconate (HEZ) nanopowders could be sintered into fully dense ceramics at 1500 ℃ for 2 h. These HEZ nanopowders showed a phase transformation from a defect-fluorite phase to a pyrochlore phase with the increase of sintering temperature. Additionally, two-step sintering of these nanopowders was conducted, and the HEZ ceramics with fine grains were prepared. The polyacrylamide gel method is simple and easily operated, which is a facile approach of producing the HEC nanopowders with excellent sinterability.