High-throughput synthesis and characterization of bulk ceramics from dry powders.

A high-throughput experimental (HTE) setup using conventional powders as raw materials was developed to synthesize and characterize ceramic bulk samples avoiding the customary liquid- or vapor-phase synthesis routes. Its functionality was verified using the well-known binary material system ZrO2-Y2O3. Libraries of 0.5 mol % yttria resolution were prepared using varying boundary systems as well as a number of liquid mixing aids. Automated powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) was applied to check the monoclinic phase content retained after heat-treatment on various positions for each sample. This phase information was used for comparison with a reference library comprising conventionally prepared samples by means of a regression analysis and mean deviation of monoclinic phase percentage. Out of the eight HTE libraries, three showed a significant comparability to the reference library.