Despite of many attractive properties, the low fracture toughness of ZrO2 ceramic limits its wide application. One of the most obvious tactics to improve the mechanical properties has been to add a reinforcing agent to formulate a nanostructured composite materials. Nanopowders of Co and ZrO2 were synthesized from 2CoO and Zr by high energy ball milling. The powder sizes of Co and ZrO2 were about 27 nm and 37 nm, respectively. Dense nanocrystalline 2Co-ZrO2 composite was consolidated by pulsed current activated sintering method within two minutes from the mechanically synthesized powders(2Co-ZrO2). The average hardness and fracture toughness values of nanostuctured 2Co-ZrO2 composite were also investigated.

Keywords: Sintering, Composite, Nanomaterial, Mechanical properties, Co-ZrO2.