Sinterability of NBT-based solid solutions at lower temperatures
SALIMKHANI H. 1, FRÖMLING T. 1
1 TU Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany
The ability to store energy from novel and clean resources demands materials that can withstand high power densities and high-power spikes. During high power spikes, extreme electric fields are applied which can raise the temperature of the material and cause failure. Thus, a new group of electroceramics is required to facilitate harvesting energy in harsh environments such as near-engine power electronics, aviation, oil drilling in wells, or pulse power applications in wind turbines. Additionally, such a capacitor material should furthermore be capable of ultrafast charging and durable at high temperatures and voltages. So far, only ceramic capacitors have been shown to have such potential and meet the criteria for such environments. Moreover, due to the environmental regulations posed by the European Union, a specific class of chemicals such as Pb cannot be applied anymore. Therefore, a new class of lead-free dielectric materials such as sodium bismuth titanate (NBT) has emerged. However, so far, NBT suffers from low power density, non-plateau permittivity, and high loss factor at elevated temperatures. To improve such shortcomings, combining NBT with other materials such as barium titanate (BT), calcium zirconate (CZ), and bismuth aluminate (BA) can do the trick, thanks to defect chemistry engineering, by generating nanopolar regions which can induce a relaxor behavior to this material and tailor it for the desired application. Another key parameter that needs to be tackled is the size of the capacitors made from this group of materials. For this purpose, making multilayers, known as Multilayer Ceramic Capacitors (MLCC), has been proposed. Fabricating MLCCs with similar properties as the bulk ceramic is of advanced technology and requires controlling many parameters. More challenging than this is selecting electrode material for making MLCCs. Currently, precious metal elements such as Pt, Pd, Ag, and their alloys are being used in industry to make MLCCs. However, due to their high costs and shortage of their reservoirs, an even more difficult challenge is to replace them with nonprecious elements such as Cu. To put Cu into the application as an electrode material for NBT-based MLCCs, certain criteria have to be considered. The first step is to evaluate the sinterability of NBT-based solid solution at lower temperatures (lower than the melting point of Cu). Therefore, in this study, we will attempt to decrease the sintering temperature of NBT-BT-CZ-BA to below the melting point of Cu through various routes.