Application of highly sensitive spectrophotometric analysis in detection of metal content in molybdenum reinforced alumina obtained by precursor infiltration of ceramic preforms

The competitive method for the preparation of molybdenum reinforced alumina has been proposed and investigated as a model for obtaining metal reinforced ceramics. The proposed method consists of infiltration of porous ceramic preform with a solution of metallic precursor followed by sintering combined with the reduction of deposited salt. This method enables formation of the composites that exhibit 36% improvement in compressive strength and no significant change in Vickers hardness in comparison to pure alumina with addition of only 0.22 wt% of molybdenum. Obtained results showed that the deposited metal concentration is highly correlated with the concentration of the precursor solution. In order to precisely determine the amount of molybdenum in the samples unconventional and novel method based on the UV/VIS spectrophotometry has been developed. This method shows a good detection ability that is suitable for determination of small amounts of metal below 0.5 wt% - a quantity difficult to analyse by using classic methods such as energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS).