Cold sintering of high performance electro-ceramics and composites
GUO J. 1, WANG H. 2
1 Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China; 2 Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China
Sintering is an indispensable part for the processing of ceramics. Due to the high melting points, most of ceramics are sintered at high temperatures. A large number of efforts have been done to reduce the sintering temperatures and improve the performances of ceramics. Recently, an advanced sintering technique termed cold sintering process was proposed to fabricate ceramics at extremely low temperatures (≤300 °C). During cold sintering process, a mediated liquid phase such as water, acid, or aqueous alkali is employed to facilitate the densification by a dissolution-precipitation process. Cold sintering process shows unique advantages due to its low sintering temperatures, such as densifying ceramics that are unstable at high temperatures, tailoring grain sizes and interfacial structures, and bridging the sintering gap of ceramics and polymers. It is also feasible to combine cold sintering process with other sintering techniques to fabricate high performance ceramics. In this talk, I will discuss the recently developed electro-ceramics and composites fabricated by cold sintering or cold sintering assisted sintering processes. The sintering mechanisms and structure-property relationships will be included.