The influence of mechanical activation on zinc stannate spinel formation

Mechanical activation of inorganic materials leads to specific changes of their chemical and physical properties. Grinding, as one way of mechanical activation, is a widely used method for obtaining highly dispersed systems, and it could be performed in various types of mills (planetary, centrifugal, vibro-mill, etc.). The development of advanced materials is, therefore, dependent not only on the investigated material, but on characteristics of a device as well. Polycrystalline zinc stannate spinel, Zn2SnO4, is a material used for combustible gases and humidity detection, photoelectrochemical applications, coatings, etc. The subject of this work is the influence of mechanical activation on solid state chemical reaction, e.g. the formation of porous zinc stannate ceramics during different thermal treatments of compacts obtained from ZnO and SnO2 powder mixtures mechanically activated in a high energy vibro-mill. X-ray diffraction analysis, scanning electron microscopy and non-isothermal dilatometric measurements were performed in order to investigate spinel formation.