The influence of mechanical activation on the formation, sintering kinetics and morphology was investigated in sintered barium strontium titanate (BST) ceramics with different Ba-to-Sr ratios. Initial powders were mechanically activated for 20 and 120 min, leading to mechano-chemical reaction and formation of BaxSr1-xTiO3 phases. Agglomeration was found to represent an important factor in the process of formation of BaxSr1-xTiO3 phases around 800?C and during sintering. It reduces the effectiveness of mechanical activation on formation of BaxSr1-xTiO3 phases beyond the short period (20 min), while in the process of sintering, prolonged mechanical activation (120 min) leads to a significant reduction in sintering temperature and the corresponding value of activation energy. In addition, all three systems show a phase transformation around 1100?C, attributed to the hexagonal-to-cubic phase transition. Morphology of the final sintered ceramics can be correlated primarily with the state of the pre-sintered powder, where mechanically activated powders with smaller particle size produced more compact and less porous final product.

Ferroelectric barium strontium titanate (Ba0.77Sr0.23TiO3), BST, was prepared by solid-state reactions using as the starting compounds powder of barium carbonate (BaCO3), strontium carbonate (SrCO3) and titanium dioxide (TiO2–anatase). Non-activated mixtures and mixtures mechanically activated in a high-energy planetary ball mill (0, 5, 10, 20, 40, 80 and 120 min) were sintered at 1100, 1200, 1300 and 1400 °C for 2 h in air atmosphere. Defects and the effect of the beginning of the sintering process on the microstructure were investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Electrical measurements (loss tangent and resistivity as the function of frequency XC=f(log ν)) were performed for ceramics sintered at 1400 °C for 2 h. It has been found that mechanical activation can reduce the sintering temperature by around 100 °C, which leads to significant energy savings. Furthermore, activated for 80 min and sintered at 1400 °C for 2 h exhibit the largest density values and have about 36% lower dielectric loss at a frequency of 1 kHz and about 57% at a frequency of 10 kHz than the samples obtained from the initial non-activated powder sintered under the same conditions

In this article the influence of mechanical activation on sintering process of bariumstrontium-titanate ceramics has been investigated. Both non-activated and mixtures treated in a planetary ball mill for 5, 10, 20, 40, 80 and 120 minutes were sintered at 1100-1400?C for 2 hours in presence of air atmosphere. The influence of mechanical activation on phase composition and crystal structure has been analyzed by XRD, while the effect of activation and sintering process on microstructure was investigated by scanning electron microscopy. It has been established that temperature of 1100?C was too low to induce final sintering stage for this system. Electrical measurements have been conducted for the densest ceramics sintered at 1400?C for 2 hours.

The origin of dielectric properties of strontium titanate ceramics is investigated using DFT calculations in periodic system. It was determined that the main factors contributing to the increase in dielectric permittivity are: tetragonal distortion of the normally cubic lattice, and charge imbalance induced displacement of titanium center from its central position. Oxygen vacancies were determined to create significantly larger effects than other types of vacancies, like Ti and SrO. The extent of tetragonal distortion was found to be determined by oxygen vacancy distribution, rather than total concentration: relatively symmetrical distribution of oxygen vacancies resulted in smaller tetragonal distortion of the lattice, and, consequently, smaller increase in dielectric permittivity. Charge imbalance naturally destabilizes the cubic lattice, forcing the Ti-atom out of its central position, resulting in tetragonal lattice with increased dielectric permittivity. The process stabilizes the strontium titanate lattice, while increasing the c/a ratio. Therefore, the dielectric permittivity of strontium titanate can be increased by changes to the system that increase tetragonal distortion of the lattice and/or introduce additional negative charge.

Barium-Strontium-Titanate Ba0.77Sr0.23TiO3 was prepared from starting materials BaCO3, SrCO3 and TiO2 through solid-state reactions. Mixtures of these oxides are mechanically activated in a high-energy planetary ball mill at different time intervals from 0 to 120 minutes. In order to obtain information on phase composition, crystal structure was determent by X-ray diffraction. It was observed that after 80 minutes in process synthesis Ba0.77Sr0.23TiO3 started Thermal analyzes were performed in order to determine the characteristic temperatures of the processes that occur in the solid phase. Particle size distribution, together with electron microscopy scanning has given us very useful information about the morphology of the powder.