SUMMARY
Doping of lithium (Li+) cations results in stabilised zirconia, especially in tetragonal (t)crystal structure, i.e., Li+: t-ZrO2. It is useful to vary oxygen vacancies in Li+: ZrO2 powders. TheLi+: t-ZrO2 powder having 1-5 mol per cent Li+, are obtained by using a novel chemical methodof a polymer precursor, which consists of Li+ and Zr4+ cations capping in polymer molecules ofpolyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and sucrose. The results are analysed in terms of XRD and microstructureof Li+: t-ZrO2 powders prepared under specific conditions of heating the precursor in air atelevated temperatures. The polymer precursor consists of fibrils of average 120 m length and0.5–1.0 m dia. A refined Li+: t-ZrO2 powder (15-25 nm crystallite size) occurs after heating theprecursor at 500–600 °C for 2 h in air.