Synthesis and Characterization of Cu-rich CCTO Dielectric Electro-ceramic Materials

Calcium copper titanate, CaCu3Ti4O12 (CCTO) is an electro-ceramic materials with high dielectric permittivities (ε). The research of this project is to synthesis CCTO ceramics with different Cu content using composition of CaCu3Ti4O12+x where x = 0.00, 0.02, 0.04,0.06, 0.08, and 0.10 mol % and to determine the effect of Cu content in CCTO on phase formation, density and microstructure. The process involves mixing the raw materials (CaCO3, CuO, and TiO2) in milling bottle filled with zirconia balls with powder to ballratio of 1:10 for 24 hours using milling machine using acetone as milling medium. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) was used to identify the surface morphology and to measure changes in weight (mass) over the temperature of sample. Powder obtained after the milling process was then calcined at temperature of 900 °C for 10 hours. The calcined powders undergoes XRD to identify the CCTO phase formation. There are still other peaks showing that there are still unreacted raw materials in the calcined powder. The calcined CCTO was then pelletized using mould with size of 10 mm and 6 mm using pressing machine. Compacted sample of CCTO was sintered at temperature of 1000 °C for 12 hours. Then, the sintered samples were test on their density, phase formation and morphology surface. The density of the sample shows increasing trend. The sample that get the highest relative density is CCTO3 at 81.83 % whereas the lowest relative density obtained is sample CCTO4 at 67.48 %. For the CCTO1, CCTO2, CCTO3, CCTO4 and CCTO5 samples, there are a few peaks that shows the formation of CuO in sintered pellet instead of CCTO phase, while pure CCTO sample shows only single phase of CCTO cubic phase was formed. The SEM micrographs for the compacted pellet shows a rare and large grain size.