Synthesis of Ag-ZnO composites via ball milling and hot pressing processes

Ag — 8 wt. % ZnO composites were synthesized by ball milling, heat treating and hot pressing of silver and zinc oxide powder mixtures. The crystalline size and microstrain of the milled powders before and after heat treatment were determined by Debye-Scherrer andWilliamson-Hall methods. It was shown that heat treatment resulted in decrease of microstrain and increase in the crystallite size of the milled powders. The effect of uniaxial pressure magnitude and duration of hot pressing at 550 °C on the final density of the powder compacts were investigated. The results showed that both plastic flow and atomic diffusion mechanisms affected densification of the composite powders during the hot pressing process. However, the latter one had more effective role on the density of the hot-pressed samples. The synthesized composites showed homogenous microstructure with relatively high density and hardness.