Aqueous Precipitation of Spherical Zinc Oxide Powders for Varistor Applications

Aqueous precipitation has been used to prepare spherical ZnO particles. These powders have been shown to be suitable for use in the preparation of varistors. The uniform size distribution and uniform coating of these powders with the appropriate dopants allowed fabrication of varistors with improved properties over those fabricated from conventionally ball‐milled and calcined powders. The improved properties were a high coefficient of nonlinearity (∼44) in the nonohmic region, a sharp change in electrical behavior from ohmic to nonohmic, and a high resistivity (5×10 12 SOM°m) at low voltages.