Simulation on liquid phase sintering of CeO2-CoO ceramic by diffusional Monte Carlo Potts model

Difficulty in control of in-situ crystal growth of CeO2-CoO ceramics limits its catalyst application of solid oxide fuel cells. It is necessary to explore a method to simulate the microstructure growth process of this ceramics under high temperature. In this work, the diffusional Monte Carlo Potts model for the simulation on liquid phase sintering of CeO2-CoO ceramics is established. With geometric and concentration-dependent probability calcu-lated, the phenomena of solidification and melting in liquid phase sintering process are simulated. Moreover, effects of diffusion and grain consolidation are also taken into consideration. The simulation on both isothermal sintering and cooling process is run. The properties of grain growth, grain size distribution and sintering neck evolution are studied. It is found that the grain growth exponent, temporal revolution of grain number and sintering neck obtained from simulation basically agree with relevant theories. In addition, grain size distribution basically remains constant and follows lognormal distribution during the sintering process. This work provides a method to study the in-situ crystal growth process of liquid phase sintered ceramics.