Porosity and fractality of yttria stabilized zirconia nanopowders obtained by microwave assisted synthesis and calcined at different temperature

Abstract Yttria stabilized zirconia nanopowders have been prepared by co-precipitation method with using a microwave radiation in the process of drying with followed calcination at different temperatures (400–900 °C). Porosity and the surface fractal dimension of zirconia nanopowders have been studied by the nitrogen isotherms at 77 K. The fractal dimension of yttria stabilized zirconia was determined by the fractal Frenkel–Halsay–Hill equation and Neimark’s equation. We found that for samples calcined at temperatures in the range of 400–900 °C the surface fractal dimension is nearly constant (2.5–2.6). This indicates that the surfaces of yttria stabilized zirconia calcined at different temperatures are indeed irregular and may be described by fractal geometry in a certain range of length scale.