Synthesis of high purity cordierite via sol-gel method

Abstract

Cordierite (2MgO2.2Al2O3.5SiO2) had many excellent properties such as low thermal expansion, good thermal shock resistance, sufficient mechanical strength, high refractoriness and others. Therefore, it had been widely used in many fields such as packaging materials for substrate in electronic packaging, special refractory and containers for high temperature application, potential sealing materials for high temperature devices such as high intensity discharge lamps and others. In this study, high purity Cordierite was successfully synthesized via sol-gel method using TEOS, Al(NO3)3.9H2O, Mg(NO3) 2.6H2O as starting materials and sintered at 1300°C. Powders obtained were characterized using XRD, FTIR and CTE analysis. XRD result showed that high purity of α-cordierite was obtained with Spinel phase as a minor impurity. FTIR spectroscopy result showed the band characteristics for α-cordierite which supported the XRD result. The CTE value for synthetic α-cordierite is 2×10-6 which proved that high purity α-cordierite was obtained. © 2010 American Institute of Physics.