Study of morphological features of lithium-containing ceramics obtained by solid-phase synthesis

Abstract

This work is devoted to the study of various morphological features of Li_xTi_1-xO₃ ceramics obtained by solid-phase synthesis and subsequent thermal annealing. Interest in these ceramics is due to the great potential for their use as materials for breeders or blankets for tritium reproduction. The choice of synthesis technology is due to the wide possibilities of changing morphological features and elemental composition, due to mixing of various components in different stoichiometric ratios. During the research, it was found that for lithium-containing ceramics, thermal annealing at a temperature of 800°C leads to the following changes: for ceramics with a lithium content of X=0.1-0.2, a change in shape is observed from rhomboid and cubic to diamond-like and hexahedral, with a sharp increase in grain sizes, which is associated with sintering processes. An increase in lithium concentration in the ceramic structure of X=0.3 leads to the formation of large grains, the size of which varies from 300 nm to 500 nm.

Keywords: lithium-containing ceramics, solid-phase synthesis, titanium dioxide, agglomerates, thermal annealing