Malaysian Journal of Analytical Sciences Vol 23 No 4 (2019): 682 - 689

DOI: 10.17576/mjas-2019-2304-15

 

 

 

PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION OF LOW CURRENT FLASH SINTERING IN ZIRCONIA NANOPARTICLE COMPACT

 

(Kajian Awal Persinteran Kilat Arus Rendah dalam Nanopartikal Zirkonia Kompak)

 

Michiyuki Yoshida¹*, Mitsuki Hada¹, Yutaka Shinoda², Osamu Sakurada¹, Fumihiro Wakai²

 

¹Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Science,

Gifu University, 1-1 Yanagido, Gifu-city 501-1193, Japan

²Laboratory for Materials and Structures,

Tokyo Institute of Technology, 4259 Nagatsuta Midori-ku Yokohama-city,226-8503, Japan

 

*Corresponding author:  myoshida@gifu-u.ac.jp

 

 

Received: 31 March 2018; Accepted: 17 April 2019

 

 

Abstract

Flash sintering is a newly developed technique to quickly densify conductive ceramics in the presence of an electric field.  At a critical combination of field and temperature, densification takes place in a few seconds.  In this paper, the feasibility of the densification in flash sintering with low current was investigated in the newly developed compact consisted of zirconia nanoparticles. Homogeneous microstructure with densely packing of nano-particles was successfully obtained by gel-casting of nano-suspension. The grain size and relative density of the sample flash sintered at 30 mA/mm² were 40.9 nm and 86.8%, respectively. The sample densified with limited grain growth in low current flash sintering. Although the full densification was not achieved in the present study, the effectiveness of the nanoparticle compact to reduce the current for the densification during flash sintering was shown by comparing the results reported in flash sintering with the coarser microstructure.

 

Keywords:  zirconia, flash sintering, gel-casting

 

Abstrak

Pensinteran kilat merupakan satu teknik yang baru dibangunkan untuk mempercepatkan pemampatan seramik konduktif dalam kehadiran medan elektrik. Pada kombinasi kritikal antara medan dan suhu, densifikasi berlaku dalam beberapa saat. Dalam manuskrip ini, keberhasilan densifikasi dalam pensinteran kilat pada arus rendah telah dikaji dalam kompak yang baru dibangunkan terdiri daripada zirkonia nanopartikel. Struktur mikro homogen dengan pengisian padat partikel nano telah berjaya dihasilkan menggunakan acuan gel ampaian nano. Saiz butir dan ketumpatan relatif sampel bersinter pada 30 mA/mm² masing-masing adalah 40.9 nm dan 86.8%. Sampel telah dimampatkan dengan pertumbuhan butiran yang terhad di dalam arus pensinteran kilat yang rendah. Walaupun pemampatan penuh tidak dapat dicapai di dalam kajian ini, namun keberkesanan kompak nanopartikel untuk merendahkan aliran arus pemampatan ketika pensinteran kilat telah dapat dilihat dengan membandingkan  hasil laporan pensinteran kilat ketika struktur mikro yang lebih besar dijalankan.

 

Kata kunci:  zirkonia, pensinteran kilat, acuan gel

 

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