Effect of Particle Morphology on Sinterability of SiC-ZrO𝟐 in Microwave

• Main Authors: Lydia Anggraini, Kei Ameyama
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hindawi Limited 2012-01-01
• Series: Journal of Nanomaterials
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2012/741214

The effect of particle morphology on the sinterability of microwave-sintered SiC-ZrO2 was evaluated in this paper. A comparison was also made against the electric furnace and resulted in faster heating rate because of the difference of heat transfer in the sintering processes. High-energy mechanical milling process has been applied to obtain the homogeneous particle morphology and finer particles size. The microstructure of finer particles of SiC-ZrO2 after milling was better in the region sintered by microwave. The microstructure in the sintered region was smaller for the coarser particles which were obtained by heterogeneous nonmilled powder mixture. The result of the Vickers hardness test was higher for the powder homogeneously dispersed SiC-ZrO2 after milling and sintering by microwave. These are influenced by the difference of individual electric properties of the initial SiC and ZrO2 which have an effect on the absorption of the microwave energy.