• Talijan, N.
• Cosovic, V.
• Zivkovic, D.
• Minic, Dusko
• Zivkovic, Z.

Abstract

<jats:p>Changes in physical properties such as density, porosity, hardness andelectrical conductivity of the Ag-SnO2 and Ag-SnO2In2O3 electrical contactmaterials induced by introduction of metal oxide nanoparticles wereinvestigated. Properties of the obtained silver-metal oxide nanoparticlecomposites are discussed and presented in comparison to their counterpartswith the micro metal oxide particles as well as comparable Ag-SnO2WO3 andAg-ZnO contact materials. Studied silvermetal oxide composites were producedby powder metallurgy method from very fine pure silver and micro- andnanoparticle metal oxide powders. Very uniform microstructures were obtainedfor all investigated composites and they exhibited physical properties thatare comparable with relevant properties of equivalent commercial silver basedelectrical contact materials. Both Ag-SnO2 and Ag- SnO2In2O3 composites withmetal oxide nanoparticles were found to have lower porosity, higher densityand hardness than their respective counterparts which can be attributed tobetter dispersion hardening i.e. higher degree of dispersion of metal oxidein silver matrix.</jats:p>

Topics

• nanoparticle
• density
• dispersion
• silver
• composite
• hardness
• porosity