Synthesis kinetics and thermophysical properties of La2(Zr0.7Ce0.3)2O7 ceramic for thermal barrier coatings

La2(Zr0.7Ce0.3)2O7 (LZ7C3) ceramic was synthesized by solid state reaction with La2O3, ZrO2 and CeO2 as starting materials. The synthesis kinetics, phase structure, mass loss and microstructure were studied by thermo gravimetric-different thermal analyzer (TG-DTA), X-ray difference (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The thermal conductivity and thermal expansion coefficient were measured by laser-flash method and pushing-rod method, respectively. XRD results showed that LZ7C3 was a mixture of La2Zr2O7 (LZ, pyrochlore) and La2Ce2O7 (LC, fluorite). The lowest synthesis temperature and time of LZ7C3 were 1400 °C and 5 h. There were no peaks of La2O3 when the powder granularity was about 0.82 μm in the synthesis process. The atom ratio La:Zr:Ce of prepared LZ7C3 powder was very close to 10:7:3 which was the theory value of LZ7C3. The thermal conductivity of LZ7C3 decreased gradually with the temperature increased up to 1200 °C, and was located within 0.79 to 1.02 W/(m·K), which was almost 50% lower than that of LZ, whereas its thermal expansion coefficient was larger and the value was 11.6×10−6 K−1.