Development of TiO2/ZrO2 Multi-Material Obtained from Ceramic Pastes for Material Extrusion

The application of additive manufacturing method such as material extrusion (MEX) allows the successful fabrication of ceramic products, including multi-ceramic products. Promising materials in this research area are TiO2 and ZrO2 ceramics, which can be used in electrical and electronic engineering. The aim of this work is to investigate the possibility of fabricating TiO2/ZrO2 multi-materials from ceramic pastes that can be used in the MEX. In this work, defects, chemical and phase composition, and microhardness were analyzed in multi-ceramic samples after sintering. Multi-ceramic TiO2/ZrO2 samples after the sintering process without interlayer could not be fabricated due to a too large difference in shrinkage between TiO2 and ZrO2. The samples with one and three interlayers also have defects, but they are less significant and can be fabricated. The average hardness for the TiO2 zone was 636.7 HV and for the ZrO2 zone was 1101 HV. In the TiO2 zone, only TiO2 phase in rutile is observed, while in the interlayer zones, in addition to rutile, ZrO2 and ZrTiO4 are also present, as is a small amount of Y2O3. In the zone ZrO2, only the ZrO2 phase is observed. The chemical analysis revealed that the interlayers comprise sintered ZrO2 granules enveloped by TiO2, ZrO2, and ZrTiO4.