Synthesis of Lithium Metasilicate Powders at Low Temperature via Mechanical Milling

The Li2SiO3 powder has been successfully synthesized at low temperature via mechanical milling process. By using LiOH center dot H2O and tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) as raw materials, Li2SiO3 powder with grain size of about 100 nm could be obtained at room temperature (20 degrees C) after mechanical milling for 120 h. This nano Li2SiO3 powder shows excellent thermal stability that no decomposing reaction or phase change would happen even after calcined at 900 degrees C for 4 h. Experiments show that high concentration of the raw materials is helpful to the forming of Li2SiO3 phase. When the concentration of the raw materials is too low, no Li2SiO3 phase could be obtained. The investigation also shows that small content of B2O3 could accelerate the densifying speed of Li2SiO3 ceramics and decrease the thermal stability of Li2SiO3 phase.