Surface Composition and Structure of Highly Porous Materials Based Zirconia Stabilized with Yttria

Highly porous permeable materials have been fabricated from zirconia nanopowders stabilized with 2, 3, and 7 mol % yttria by duplicating the polymer matrix. It is shown that the samples are characterized by a complex surface relief formed by sintered powder agglomerates resulted from the agglomeration treatment. It is established by Raman spectroscopy that the phase composition of the material surface is identical to the composition of initial nanopowders and is presented only by the tetragonal modification in all studied cases. It is shown that the deposition of nickel (an active catalytic component) from nickel nitrate solutions or the deposition of metallic nickel on surfaces of ZrO2 stabilized with 3 mol % Y2O3 causes the formation of a monoclinic modification. Only a tetragonal modification is identified on the surface of highly porous ZrO2 samples stabilized with 2 and 7 mol % Y2O3. When using the peak splitting procedure, the shift of the integral peak intensity toward lines characteristic of the monoclinic modification is fixed.