Effect of Rare Earths on Alumina Ceramics

The purchasing pace at the demand end of the international thermal coal market continues to slow down and the international thermal coal price continues to decline. Prices for thermal coal at major international ports continued to fall last week as buyers in Europe slowed in recent days for April, coupled with weaker-than-expected import demand from End users in China. According to China Coal Market net monitoring:  Australia Newcastle port thermal coal price index was 253 USD/ton, compared with 309.02 USD/ton, down 56.02 USD/ton, down 18.13%. South Africa's Port Richards thermal coal price Index was $264.5 / mt, down the US $62.72 / mt or 19.17% from US $327.22 / mt. The European ARA Tri-port thermal coal price Index was $281.8 / ton. Does the price of thermal coal in major international ports continue to decline to affect the price of the aluminum oxide? 

Aluminum oxide ceramic has the characteristics of high mechanical strength, high hardness, wear and corrosion resistance, high temperature resistance, light weight, and good insulation. Alumina is widely used in textile, coal, petroleum, chemical, electronics, construction and other industries. It is a low-cost and widely used ceramic material.
 
However, the toughness of pure alumina ceramic is poor, and its strength and wear resistance need to be improved, which limits its application field to be further broadened. The synergistic modification of multi-phase has become the research direction to improve the mechanical properties and wear resistance of alumina ceramics.
Rare earth elements have special electronic structure, and the modified alumina has important applications in catalytic materials, ceramic materials and other industries.
The radius of rare earth cations is much larger than that of aluminum ions, and the difference in ion radius makes them difficult to dissolve, so rare earth elements mainly exist on the grain boundary of alumina, and the rare earth oxides with glass network structure are large and difficult to move, which hinders the migration of other ions, reduces the migration rate of grain boundaries, restrains the abnormal growth of grains and makes the structure compact. Rare earth oxides doped with grain boundary glass phase can improve the strength of glass phase and enhance the mechanical properties of ceramics. The more rare earth oxides are added, the more obvious the effect of reducing the sintering temperature is, but the excessive addition will make the mechanical properties of ceramics worse.
 
Effect of rare Earth elements on Microstructure of Alumina Ceramics
After doping nanometer lanthanum oxide, nanometer yttrium oxide and nanometer cerium oxide, the grain size of ceramics will decrease, indicating that rare earth oxides can refine the grains. However, with the increase of rare earth oxide content, the ceramic grain size increases gradually, at the same time, the liquid phase content also increases gradually. This phenomenon may be explained as follows: because the ion radius of rare earth ions is much larger than that of aluminum ions, rare earth ions hardly dissolve in alumina and mainly exist in the glass phase of grain boundary. At the same time, rare earth oxides with glass network structure hinder the migration of ions, inhibit grain growth and refine grains, but excessive addition of rare earth oxides will increase liquid phase volume, reduce liquid phase viscosity, promote ion migration and make grains grow excessively. The grain size becomes larger.
 
Effect of rare Earth elements on hardness of Alumina Ceramics
The hardness of alumina ceramics doped with rare earth oxides such as nanometer lanthanum oxide and nanometer yttrium oxide increases at first and then decreases with the increase of content. The possible reason for this phenomenon is that the addition of appropriate amount of rare earth oxides can refine the grains, increase the amount of liquid phase, fill the grain gaps, increase the density and hardness, but with the excessive addition of rare earth oxides, the negative effects of grain size and interstitial increase on density and hardness can not be offset, showing that the hardness decreases gradually.
 
Effect of rare Earth elements on friction and Wear Properties of Alumina Ceramics
It is found that the worn surface of alumina ceramic goes through four processes: the fracture and pull-out of grains, the formation of friction layer, the increase of friction layer area and crack. The grains shedding off alumina ceramic during wear will remain on the friction interface. A smooth friction layer is formed under the action of surface stress. The friction layer is composed of two kinds of wear debris, which can reduce the wear rate of ceramics. The wear mechanism of alumina ceramics is mainly abrasive wear, and an appropriate amount of rare earth oxide doping can improve the wear resistance of alumina ceramics.
 
Effect on relative density of alumina ceramics
It is found that the relative density of alumina ceramics doped with Y2O3 and CeO2 increases at first and then decreases with the difference of doping amount. At the same time, it is found that the relative density of alumina ceramics with Y2O3 is lower than that of alumina doped with CeO2 and La2O3. It may be because:
The radius of rare earth ions is large, so it is difficult to form solid solution with alumina, which mainly exists in liquid phase, which reduces the viscosity of liquid phase. At the same time, rare earth oxides can promote the chemical reaction of alumina with other additive components and increase the amount of liquid phase. The addition of a small amount of rare earth oxides is beneficial to the formation of liquid phase, accelerate the elimination of pores and improve the density of ceramics.
In addition, the addition of rare earth oxides with high melting point increases the sintering temperature of ceramics, while rare earth ions have a larger ion radius, which hinders the migration of other ions. Excessive addition of rare earth oxides is not conducive to ceramic sintering and reduces the degree of densification.
 
Aluminum oxide Price
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The World Food Program (WFP) of the United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU) said in a statement that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine poses risks to global food supplies, and called on the international community to increase support for vulnerable countries and jointly address food security challenges. 

A few days ago, the Executive director of the World Food Program, the European Commission's commissioner in charge of crisis management, the French Foreign Minister of the ROTATING EU presidency, and other officials held a meeting in Rome, Italy, to discuss how to deal with the negative impact of the Conflict between Russia and Ukraine on global food security. 

One of the officials told a news conference after the meeting that the world was facing a food supply challenge that would "last for many years" as the conflict between Russia and Ukraine pushed up global food prices and disrupted the aluminum oxide will continue.

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