Zirconium oxide (ZrO₂), also known as zirconium dioxide, is an important high-performance ceramic material. It is a white or light yellow powder with excellent physical and chemical properties. Zirconia has a melting point of about 2700°C, high hardness, high mechanical strength, good thermal stability and chemical stability, and can withstand acid and alkali corrosion and high temperature environments. In addition, zirconium oxide has a high refractive index and excellent optical properties, so it is also widely used in the optical field.
In practical applications, pure zirconium oxidehas phase change problems (the transition from monoclinic phase to tetragonal phase will cause volume change and material cracking), so it is usually necessary to dope stabilizers such as yttrium oxide (Y₂O₃), calcium oxide (CaO) or magnesium oxide (MgO) to make stabilized zirconium oxide (Stabilized Zirconia) to improve its mechanical properties and thermal shock resistance. Through reasonable doping and sintering processes, zirconia materials can not only maintain excellent mechanical properties, but also show good ionic conductivity, which makes it widely used in structural ceramics, fuel cells, oxygen sensors, medical implants and other fields.
In addition to traditional structural material applications, zirconia also plays an increasingly important role in the field of ultra-precision surface treatment, especially in the field of high-end polishing materials. With its unique physical properties, zirconia has become an indispensable key material for precision polishing.
In the field of polishing, zirconia is mainly used as high-end polishing powder and polishing slurry. Due to its moderate hardness (Mohs hardness of about 8.5), high mechanical strength and good chemical inertness, zirconia can achieve extremely low surface roughness while ensuring a high polishing rate, and obtain a mirror-level finish. Compared with traditional polishing materials such as aluminum oxide and cerium oxide, zirconia can better balance material removal rate and surface quality during the polishing process, and is an important polishing medium in the field of ultra-precision manufacturing.
Zirconia polishing powder generally has a particle size controlled between 0.05μm and 1μm, which is suitable for surface polishing of various high-precision materials. Its main application areas include: optical glass, camera lenses, mobile phone screen glass, hard disk substrates, LED sapphire substrates, high-end metal materials (such as titanium alloys, stainless steel, precious metal jewelry) and advanced ceramic devices (such as alumina ceramics, silicon nitride ceramics, etc.). In these applications, zirconium oxide polishing powder can effectively reduce surface defects and improve the optical performance and mechanical stability of products.
In order to meet the requirements of different polishing processes, zirconium oxide can be made into a single polishing powder, or it can be compounded with other polishing materials (such as cerium oxide, aluminum oxide) to make a polishing slurry with better performance. In addition, high-purity zirconium oxide polishing slurry usually adopts nano-dispersion technology to make the particles highly dispersed in the liquid to avoid agglomeration, ensure the stability of the polishing process and the uniformity of the final surface.
Overall, with the continuous improvement of surface quality requirements in electronic information technology, optical manufacturing, aerospace and high-end medical fields, zirconium oxide, as a new type of high-efficiency polishing material, has a very broad application prospect. In the future, with the continuous development of ultra-precision machining technology, the technical application of zirconium oxide in the polishing field will continue to deepen, helping to meet higher-end manufacturing needs.
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