27
Deepam Maurya
Shashank Priya
NBT-based ceramics promising alternative to
lead-based piezoelectric materials
Working with Shashank Priya, the Robert E. Hord
Jr. Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Associate Director for Scholarship and Research at the
Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science
(ICTAS), post-doctoral researcher Deepam Maurya
has been looking to find an alternative to lead-based
piezoelectric ceramic materials since earning his
doctoral degree from Virginia Tech in 2012. Lead
zirconate titanate, known as PZT, is one of the world’s
most often used piezoelectric ceramic materials – and
is made up of more than 50 percent lead.
While PZT components are normally very small, the
numbers of these lead-based products is staggering;
and finding a suitable replacement will yield enormous
economic and environmental benefits.
Lead toxicity has caused a growing demand around
the world for the elimination of lead from many consumer items such as cell phones, auto focus cameras
and fuel injectors.
“We’ve discovered we can achieve similar properties such as high piezoelectric response and high
temperature stability in a lead-free material.”
The patented lead substitute, which Maurya calls
‘NBT-based ceramics’ is a significant improvement
over previous compounds as the mixture. When combined with a special synthesis process that aligns the
grains in the ceramic along a preferred crystallographic direction this material exhibits excellent temperature stability, giant electric field induced strain, and
ultra-low hysteresis. In short, it achieves the optimum
combination of most of the relevant electromechanical
parameters necessary to be a viable alternative to
traditional PZT.
The pair had a paper published on their work in
2015 that can be found in Scientific Reports.