• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.247-254
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• 2016

Since microzirconia has excellent thermal and mechanical properties with high chemical and electrical resistance, it can be used in various fields. When the surface of zirconia becomes hydrophilic, its dispersibility in water will be improved as well as the resistance to most hydrophobic contaminants will be increased. In this study, we investigated the introduction of a hydrophilic groups on the microzircornia surface through hydrolysis and condensation reactions with two different silanes containing hydrophilic functional groups, such as ${\gamma}$-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane (APS) and ${\gamma}$-ureidopropyltrimethoxysilane (UPS) at different pH and concentration conditions. A covalent bond formation between the surface hydroxyl groups of zirconia and that of hydrolyzed silanes was confirmed by ninhydrin test and FT-IR spectroscopy. However, the presence of Si on the surfaces of both silane modified microzirconias was unable to detect by SEM/EDS technique. In addition, particle size analysis results provide that the size of microzirconia was changed to smaller or bigger than that of original zirconia due to crushing and aggregation during the modification process. The water dispersibility was improved for only APS modifed zirconia (AS-2 and AS-3) under neutral pH condition, but the water dispersibility and stability for all cases of 0.5~2% UPS modifed zirconia (US series) were much improved.