organics. The samp les were subsequent ly sinter ed at 1150–
1250 8C with 25 8C interval for 2 h. A typical sintering
procedure is illustrated in Fig. 1(b).
Fig. 2 reveals typical XRD patterns of PZT powder and
sintered porous ceramics. It could be observed that perovskite
structure was exhibited for both the calcined powder and
sintered ceramics with no other phase detected indicating that
the powder and sintering procedure employed in the present
work were appropriate.