The effect of starch addition on solution combustion synthesis of Al2O3–ZrO2 nanocomposite powder using urea as fuel

The present article reports the results of studies related to the synthesis of Al2O3–ZrO2 nanocomposite powder by solution combustion process using modified fuels containing urea and starch. A thermodynamic modeling was used to theoretically predict the effect of fuel composition on the exothermicity of the combustion synthesis process. To characterize the products, X-ray diffractometry, TEM, SEM, surface area analysis, BET, and differential thermal analysis (DTA) were used. It is shown that employment of a starting solution with fuel based on urea modified with 5% starch as an excess fuel, decrease exothermicity of the combustion reaction and results in synthesizing nanostructured Al2O3–ZrO2 powder mixture with small crystallite size (<20 nm) and fine agglomerates in a way that specific surface area up to 13.16 m2 g−1 could be obtained.