Thermal Characterization of Neodymium-Barium-Copper Ceramic (NBCo Ceramic) Synthesized from Barium Carbonate

Abstract

This work presents a study about thermal properties of a ceramic material based on NdBaCu system sintered with barium carbonate. These specialized ceramics are manufactured under special conditions and due to its unique electrical and thermal properties are frequently used by the electronic industry. Ceramics containing neodymium-barium-copper (NdBaCu) exhibit high conductivity at low temperatures. In this work, the ceramic samples were sintered with different percentage of barium carbonate, cupric and neodymium oxide and were characterized with Termogravimetric Analysis (TGA), Differential Scanning Calorimetric (DSC), Thermal Dilatometric Analysis (TDA) and X-Ray Diffraction Analysis (DRX). The results showed that the electrical conductivity of NdBaCu system is dependent on the calcination temperature. In turn, the complete calcination is dependent on the barium percentage and the thermal treatment conditions.