Direct measurement of grain boundary enthalpy of cubic yttria-stabilized zirconia by differential scanning calorimetry

A straight-forward set of experiments using differential scanning calorimetry was used to obtain the average grain boundary enthalpy at high temperatures for 10 mol. % yttria-stabilized zirconia (10YSZ) by exploiting the heat of grain growth on nanograined dense samples consolidated by spark plasma sintering. The heat of grain growth was measured and correlated with the quantified microstructure evolution during the process. The average grain boundary enthalpy of 10YSZ was found to be 1.00 ± 0.29 J m−2 for the temperature range 900–1300 °C. Comparing this result with room temperature data in the literature, small temperature dependence of the grain boundary enthalpy could be found outside the experimental uncertainties in both experiments.