Although the dominance of alumina, considered as an attractive material for structural applications, its low fracture toughness and flexural strength can limit the scope of use as an advanced engineering product. In order to overcome a brittleness and thermal shock, a promising alternative such as zirconia might be fully utilized and introduced to alumina providing zirconia toughened alumina. Combination of the advantageous properties of these two oxides, regarding specified ratio between monolithics, enables designing the composite with very good performance under mechanical loads and extreme thermal conditions, offering a durable ZTA a wide range of applications - especially automotive (valves, fluid pressure sensor), industrial (seal rings, marker, cutting tools, wear resistant parts, machine screws) and medical (implants). 
Industrial development of a homogeneous ready-to-press ZTA powder finding commercial acceptance, is strongly dependent on the processing route based on the proper homogenization of selected alumina, zirconia with chemical additives and consequently shaping of the slurry by spray drying into micrometric granules suitable for cold/hot isostatic/uniaxial pressing and further sintering.
This paper describes the strong influence of yttria stabilized zirconia on performance of ready to press 80/20 and 72/28 ZTA. The size of the zirconia particles and concentration of the stabilizing oxide were found as essential parameters dictating implementation of a proper additives system and also determining critical properties of the pressed and sintered body such as density, hardness, MOR, fracture toughness, primary grain size. Therefore, the conducted research gave a deep insight into the nature of yttria stabilized zirconia which allowed to specify a proper composition of 80/20 and 72/28 ZTA finding application as an attractive material for the structural ceramic market.