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Mullite/10 wt. %h-BN composites with 5 wt. % Y2O3 additive were fabricated by pressureless sintering at different temperatures. The densification, phase composition, microstructure, mechanical and dielectric properties of the mullite/h-BN composites were investigated. With the addition of Y2O3, the sintering temperature of the mullite/h-BN composites declined, while the density, mechanical and dielectric properties all increased. The addition of Y2O3 promoted the formation of liquid phase at high temperature, which accelerated the densification. Besides, Y2O3 particles which were located at the grain boundaries inhibited the grain growth of mullite matrix. For the mullite/h-BN composites with Y2O3 additive, the appropriate sintering temperature was about 1600°C. The relative density, flexural strength, fracture toughness and dielectric constant of the Y2O3 doped mullite/h-BN composite sintered at 1600 °C reached 82%, 135 MPa, 2.3 MPa·m1/2 and 4.9, respectively.

A self-made sectional die made of high-performance graphite, SiC ceramic and Ni-based superalloy was firstly designed and developed. The TiO2 ceramic, with original TiO2 powders of average particle size ~25 nm and 80 wt.% anatase + 20 wt.% rutile, was fabricated by plasma activated sintering (PAS) at 500600 °C for 3 min under applied uniaxial pressure of 2001000 MPa using the sectional die. The influences of sintering temperature and applied pressure on the density, phase transformation and grain growth of the TiO2 ceramic were investigated. The results showed that the sintering temperature and applied pressure played key roles in determining the relative density, phase composition and grain size of the TiO2 ceramic. The relative density and grain size increased and the anatase phase transformed into the rutile phase slowly or quickly as the sintering temperature or the applied pressure increased. In particular, the increase of sintering temperature was very advantageous to the phase transformation, and the increase of applied pressure was quite effective to inhabit the grain growth. All the averaged grain sizes of TiO2 ceramics were less than 100 nm in the present experimental conditions. Moreover, the relative density of the sintered ceramic were over 95% when the optimized sintering parameters were 600 °C × 500MPa or 500 °C × 1000MPa. The TiO2 ceramics were composed of only the rutile phase when the applied pressure and the sintering temperature were not less than 300 MPa and 550 °C, respectively.

High purity Al2O3 powder was used as raw material and MgO was used as additive to sinter alumina transparent ceramics in hydrogen atmosphere. EBSD image showed that, with the increase of the MgO content, the grain size decreased from 200μm (when no Mg was doped) to about 20μm (when the Mg doping amount was 1.0wt%), indicating that MgO had an inhibition effect on the grain growth. XRD analysis showed that the doping of MgO did not lead to the formation of new phases. A further refinement of cell parameters revealed that, when the doping amount reached 1.0wt%, lattice distortion occurred and the cell volume increased by about 80%, which was attributed to the formation and diffusion of oxygen vacancies. The Eg mode at ν=575cm-1 revealed by Laser Raman Spectroscopy suggested that AlO6 octahedra were distorted with the increase of the MgO content. And the frequency change of the A1g mode at ν=642cm-1 reflected the combined effect of ion mass and mechanical constant. Measurement of the optical transmittance indicated that, after the doping of MgO, a small amount of MgAl2O4 phase formed at the grain boundary, causing the transmittance to increase first and then decrease with the increase of the MgO content. And analysis of the dielectric properties showed that the change of the dielectric constant and loss with the frequency at room temperature resulted from ion relaxation polarization induced by the weakly bound ions in the AlO6 octahedron.

Porous silicon nitride ceramics with various amounts (25, 35, and 45 vol %) of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) were fabricated at 1800C for 2h by the pressureless sintering process. With FESEM and TEM, the effects of h-BN on the microstructure and mechanical properties of Si3N4 ceramics were investigated. Results of the microstructure and mechanical properties of Si3N4/BN composites showed that the growth of the elongated β-Si3N4 were hindered by h-BN additive, which resulted in the decrease of fracture toughness of Si3N4/BN ceramics with increasing h-BN content. The morphologies of the fracture surfaces by FESEM revealed the fracture mode for Si3N4/BN composites to be intergranular. However, phase analysis by XRD indicated that the effect of h-BN on the α- to β- Si3N4 phase transformation of Si3N4/BN composites was negligible.

With commercial α-Si3N4 and h-BN powders as starting materials, La2O3, Al2O3, Y2O3 as sintering additives, Si3N4/BN composite ceramics with 25vol% h-BN were fabricated by pressureless sintering. Various amounts of La2O3 (0, 2, 4, 8, 15wt%) were added, with constant Y2O3/Al2O3 weight ratio and additives (Y2O3/Al2O3/La2O3) amount. The densification behaviors, α-βtransformation and room-temperature strength of Si3N4/BN composite were investigated. The porosity of samples decreased with La2O3 content increasing, and the lowest porosity of 20.83% was observed for samples containing 4wt% La2O3, then leaded to an increase. The flexural strength of all the specimens increased with the addition up to 4wt% and changed greatly thereafter. The highest room-temperature flexural strength, 272.4MPa, was obtained when 4wt% La2O3 was added. Results of XRD patterns revealed that β-Si3N4 and h-BN existed in all the specimens. No α-Si3N4 was detected, implying thatα- toβ-Si3N4 transformation has been completed during the pressureless sintering process. These results show that the La2O3-Al2O3-Y2O3 system can act as effective sintering additives for pressureless sintered Si3N4/BN composite.

In this article, the microstructure, mechanical properties and machinability of the B4C/BN microcomposites and the B4C/BN nanocomposites were investigated. Homogenous distribution of the h-BN particles in the B4C ceramics appeared. The mechanical properties decreased gradually with the increasing content of h-BN for the both composites, while the nanocomposites demonstrated high performance. Machinability increased gradually with the increasing content of h-BN, and excellent machinability exhibited for both composites with more than 20wt% h-BN. The weak interface between the B4C matrix grains and the h-BN particles as well as the cleavage behavior of the laminate structured h-BN particles significantly attributed to the machinability of the B4C/BN composites.

The B4C/BN nanocomposites were fabricated by hot-pressing sintering of the B4C/BN nanocomposite powders at 1850oC for 1h under the pressure of 30MPa. The composite powders with the microstructure of B4C particles coated with nano-sized BN particles were prepared by the chemical reaction of H3BO3 and CO(NH2)2 on the surface of B4C particles at high temperature. The microstructure investigation of the nanocomposites sintered samples showed that the nano-sized h-BN particles were homogenously distributed in the B4C matrix. With the increasing content of h-BN, the density of the B4C/BN nanocomposites decreased gradually; the fracture strength and fracture toughness of the B4C/BN nanocomposites decreased gradually, the strength and toughness of the B4C/BN nanocomposites with the h-BN content of 10wt% and 20wt% achieved high values. The Vickers hardness of the B4C/BN nanocomposites decreased remarkably with the increasing content of h-BN, while the machinability of the B4C/BN nanocomposites was significantly improved. The B4C/BN nanocomposites with the h-BN content more than 20wt% exhibited excellent machinability.

In this research, the metal and ceramic laminates Ti/Al2O3, Ni/Al2O3 were prepared by PAS. The bonding interfaces of Ti/Al2O3, Ni/Al2O3 were observed and analyzed. The microstructures of laminates were observed by SEM. It was shown that the joints of the samples were tight and had not visible flaws. Moreover, the comparison of Ti/Al2O3 and Ni/Al2O3 laminates showed that the join mechanisms of them were different. Ni/Al2O3 laminates that had not apparent conversion zone were joined by diffusion and had lower bond strength. Ti/Al2O3 laminates have obvious conversion zone because Ti and oxygen have strong combining power. Three-point bending test indicated that the fracture of laminates was correlated to the bond strength of the interface.

We used ethylene glycol as pore-forming agent to prepare porous carbon with interconnected pores derived from phenol–formaldehyde resin. The mixture of resins and glycol was by polymerization and pyrolysis monolithic material of porous carbon with interconnected mesopores and a narrow pore size range. The average pore size of the porous carbon obtained was 28.2 nm. The nitrogen adsorption isotherm for the porous carbon exhibited type IV isotherm, which corresponded to mesoporous adsorption. The method could endow porous carbon with BET surface area and pore volume about 500 m2/g and 0.607 cm3/g, respectively. The mesopores in porous carbon formed as a result of phase separation of resin-rich phase and glycol-rich phase at polymerization and remove of glycol-rich at subsequent pyrolysis.

Copper and aluminium laminates are alternately stacked and sintered by PAS at T=743K under different pressures. Microstructure of the cross section of the samples are characterized and analyzed by means of Optical Microscope (OM), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Energy Dispersive Spectroscope (EDS). The results show that the initial Al layers melted and produced Al-rich liquid phase during sintering at T=743K, and the Al-rich liquid phase ultimately formed complicated L layer consisting of the saturated solid solution phase Al(Cu) and the two-phase Al2Cu-Al(Cu) eutectic when the laminates was cooled to room-temperature. The interface between the Cu layer the L layer consists of solid solution(α), Al2Cu3(δ)and Al2Cu(θ) layer. Voids and cracks are not found at or near the interfaces of the polished samples. The most important effect of the pressure is to change the shapes of interfaces, which almost smooth at 10MPa but flexual at 50MPa.

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The machinable B4C/BN ceramics composites were fabricated by hot-pressing sintering process at 1850oC for 1h under the pressure of 30MPa. The mechanical property, thermal shock behavior and machinability of the B4C/BN ceramics composites were investigated in this article. The experimental results showed that the fracture strength and fracture toughness of the B4C/BN nanocomposites were significantly improved in comparison with the B4C/BN microcomposites. The Vickers hardness of the B4C/BN nanocomposites and B4C/BN microcomposites decreased gradually with the increasing content of h-BN, while the machinability of the B4C/BN nanocomposites and B4C/BN microcomposites were significantly improved. The B4C/BN ceramics composites with the h-BN content more than 20wt% exhibited excellent machinability. The thermal shock resistances of the B4C/BN ceramics composites were better than that of the B4C monolith, and the thermal shock resistance of the B4C/BN nanocomposites was much better than that of the B4C/BN microcomposites. The thermal shock temperature difference (-Tc) of B4C monolith was about 300oC, while the -Tc of the B4C/BN microcomposites was about 500oC, the -Tc of the B4C/BN nanocomposites was about 600oC.

SiC particles coated with nano-BN were synthesized and the machinable SiC/BN ceramic nano-composites were fabricated by Plasma Active Sintering (PAS) in N2 atmosphere. The existing and distribution of h-BN phase were revealed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), and SEM. For the existing of weak interface between h-BN and SiC grains, the machinability of both SiC/BN micro-composites and nano-composites were improved obviously. Because the nano-sized h-BN crystals were homogeneously dispersed around the SiC grains of the matrix, the fracture strength of the nano-composites was better than the SiC/h-BN micro-composite.

High purity alumina/stainless steel joints were produced via activated molybdenummanganese (Mo-Mn) route using 72Ag-28Cu solder. Microstructures of the metallized ceramic and joint sections were observed by scanning electron microscopy. Joint strength was tested by shear-loading method. Some process factors were characterized and analyzed, which include temperature, holding time and heating and cooling rate in ceramic metallization process. The effects of Ni plating and succedent annealing were also investigated. Experimental results show that, migration of glassy phases is the main mechanism of the ceramic metallization. Glass migration direction is from metallizing layer to ceramic side. In the ranges of temperature and holding time of metallization, joint strength firstly increases and then falls with temperature raising and time extending. More fully sintered metallizing layer can be obtained while the temperature increases from 1200oC to 1500oC, and the time prolongs from 30min to 60min. Over-sintering of the metallizing layer will take place with metallizing temperature of 1600 oC and overlong holding time of 70min, which reduces the joint strength. The slower heating and cooling rate, and the annealing after Ni plating both help enhance the seal strength, due to relieving or eliminating interlayer residual thermal stress. However, too slow heating and cooling rate, such as 5 oC /min, is equivalent to overlong holding time and finally also decline the strength. A thin Ni coating helps solder wet metallizing surface, and stops solder erode metallizing layer.

Highly porous Si3N4 ceramics in service are usually subjected to continuous impact of solid particles which may give rise to localized damage and consequently to strength degradation. Hertzian indentation and three-point bending tests were conducted to investigate the contact damage behavior of highly porous Si3N4 ceramics in this paper. The Hertzian indentation damage morphologies were examined by using a bonded-interface technique. As a result of intragranular microfracture under Hertzian indentation, a distributed subsurface damage region is developed beneath the indenter. It was shown that, with increasing indentation load, the damage region extends progressively and a quasi-plastic stress-strain response exhibits. Failure sources were observed to be Hertzian indentation sites in three-point bending tests, leading to a gradual strength degradation.

The solid-phase photocatalytic degradation of poly (vinyl chloride) (PVC) films was investigated in ambient air. The photodegradation of the PVC and PVC-TiO2 was compared with that of plasma-treated PVC and plasma-treated PVC-TiO2 [removed info]performing a weight loss monitoring and scanning electron microscopic (SEM) analysis. The SEM of the PVC-TiO2 film treated by plasma showed many cracks on the surface after photodegradation. Furthermore, the surface wettability and surface structure of PVC after nitrogen plasma treatment was characterized by contact angle, surface tension, and electron spin resonance (ESR). The experiment indicated that the surface free energy and wettability of PVC treated by plasma increased greatly. ESR revealed that the signal of radicals on the surface of the plasma-treated PVC film was enhanced after treatment. The free radicals on the surface of plasma-treated PVC possibly decreased the activating energy of photocatalytic reaction, which belongs to the free radicals reaction, because the chemical activity of the free radicals was high. According to these findings, a mechanism on the photodegradation of plasma-treated PVC-TiO2 is proposed.

The SiC/h-BN ceramic composites with different h-BN size were fabricated by Plasma Active Sintering (PAS) method. For the SiC/ nano-sized h-BN ceramic composites, when the h-BN content was increased, because the nano-sized h-BN crystals were homogeneously dispersed around the SiC grains of the matrix, the bending strength and fracture toughness of the composites decreased slowly, but the hardness decreased sharply, therefore the machinability and thermal shock resistance were improved noticeable.

Reaction bonded silicon carbide (RB-SiC) was fabricated by phenol resin, starch, solidified agent and silicon powder through the following steps: first, carbonizing at high temperature for 7-9h, infiltrating silicon at 1450-1600oC for 0.5-2h, and then removing excessive silicon at 1700oC for 0.5h. Scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction were employed to characterize and analyze the microstructures and phase composition of the preforms and the final RB-SiC products. In addition, the effect of carbonization temperature, the amount of starch and solidified agent on strength and apparent porosity of final RB-SiC were also discussed. The results showed that the carbonization process of phenol resin can be divided into three steps: at temperatures from 400oC to 600oC, the structure of polymer changes less; at temperatures from 600oC to 1000oC, the fundamental chain of polymer is destroyed, and inverts to glass-like carbon; at temperatures from 1000oC to 1200oC, with the increasing of carbonization temperature, the structure of glass-like carbon changes into the structure of disorder graphite. And the increased micro-pores could be obtained by adding starch.

The aim of this study was to analyze the microstructure and to observe the surface reactivity of a composite system composed of two kinds of zirconia/alumina (Z/A) composites and Vita alpha glass-ceramic, which would satisfy the biocompatibility and strength requirements for dental applications. Two zirconia/alumina composites defined as specimen A and B were used as the substrate of fixed partial denture, while commercial Vita alpha glass-ceramic as the coating-glass.[removed info]From the experiment we can find the following results. Zirconia particles migrated into grain boundaries and located at three or four grain junctions of alumina particles. The crack pattern is consistently transgranular for the zirconia grains, whereas it is intergranular for alumina grains. The mechanical properties of the composite with 66.6wt% zirconia was superior to that of 33.3wt% zirconia-composed composite, while the homogeneous bond between Vita alpha glass-ceramic and Z/A composites are distinct. Therefore, this system composed of Z/A composites and Vita alpha glass-ceramic would satisfy matching properties of dental requirements and it has a great future to be used as all-ceramic restoration materials.

In this paper, the mechanical properties of porous Si3N4/SiC composite prepared by different forming method (uniaxial pressing and gel-casting) were compared. Using gelcasting and two steps sintering technology, the porous SiC-particle/Si3N4 composites with a high strength, uniform structure and a relative high porosity were obtained by adding a little amount of nano carbon in slurry. The flexural strength of optimized material reaches to 100MPa and its porosity is more than 60%. But using uniaxial pressing and sintering at N2 atmosphere, because the green bodies have the high density, and the density distribution of a powder compact was not uniform, the flexural strength is not high, and at the same time, the microstructure is not uniform also.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate a method of preparation of rod-like β-Si3N4 seeds for self-reinforced silicon nitride ceramics. β-Si3N4 seeds with different size and aspect ratios have been well developed by means of heating the mixture of α-Si3N4 containing various contents of β-Si3N4 powder with certain additives at 1800°С for holding different time under 0.5MPa nitrogen gas. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were performed to investigate the morphology, phase transformation and secondary phase. The influence of the proportion of β-Si3N4 in the initial α-Si3N4 powder on seeds size and morphology was investigated. The uniform β-Si3N4 seeds with controllable size and aspect ratios obtained through the β-Si3N4 addition can be explained by an increased heterogeneous nucleation, and MgO was more effective for enhancing the grain growth by the decreased viscosity.