Flash Sintering of Composite Ceramic Materials and Structures

陶瓷材料应用广泛，包括运动传感器、电动汽车储能、牙齿置换、髋关节和膝关节植入物、切割刀片以及身体和车辆装甲。它们非常耐用，即使在高温和腐蚀性环境中也是如此，并且可以在使用寿命结束时重复使用或回收。然而，高制造成本是使用陶瓷材料的主要障碍。生产具有最小孔隙率的致密坚固陶瓷材料需要加热到通常远超过1000 ℃的非常高的温度许多小时。最近，科学家们发现，通过在加热过程中使电场穿过陶瓷，可以显著降低陶瓷致密化过程（烧结）的温度和持续时间。这种“快速烧结”工艺，之所以被称为“快速烧结”，是因为材料在几秒钟内就会非常迅速地致密化，而且通常会同时发光，因此有可能显著减少工业规模陶瓷制造中的能源使用，并将该工艺的温室气体排放量减少高达40%。闪速烧结技术可以通过降低生产陶瓷材料的成本和环境影响来彻底改变陶瓷制造业，在本研究项目中，将对闪速烧结方法进行详细的调查，以确定该技术用于各种陶瓷材料的可行性，特别是了解引起闪速烧结效应的潜在机制。将建立一个灵活的闪速烧结设施，可用于闪速烧结各种陶瓷材料。具有不同电导率的复合材料将在不同条件下快速烧结。结果将用于了解材料特性和工艺中涉及的变量（例如电场强度、电流、电压和温度）对观察到的闪速烧结行为的影响。材料将通过测量其密度，使用扫描电子显微镜成像和绘制化学成分，并使用X射线衍射来确定由闪速烧结过程引起的材料相组成的任何变化来表征。通过闪速烧结首次获得了由陶瓷复合材料层组成的结构，并研究了闪速烧结行为与含有每种单独成分的样品相比如何变化。该项目的成果将被我们的工业项目合作伙伴Lucideon和Morgan Advanced Materials用于闪速烧结技术的工业开发和应用。

Ceramic materials are used in a wide range of applications including motion sensors, for energy storage in electric vehicles, dental replacement, hip and knee implants, cutting blades, and body and vehicle armour. They are exceptionally durable, even at high temperatures and in corrosive environments, and can be reused or recycled at the end of their life. However the high cost of manufacturing is a major barrier to the use of ceramic materials. Producing a dense strong ceramic material with minimal porosity requires heating to very high temperatures well over 1000 deg.C typically for many hours. Recently scientists have discovered that the temperature and duration of the ceramic densification process (sintering) can be significantly reduced by passing an electric field through the ceramic during the heating process. This "flash sintering" process, so-called because the material densifies extremely rapidly within a few seconds and often with the simultaneous emission of light, has potential to significantly reduce energy use in industrial-scale ceramic manufacturing and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases from the process by up to 40%. The flash sintering technique may revolutionise the ceramic manufacturing industry by reducing the cost and environmental impact of producing ceramic materials.In this research project a detailed investigation of the flash sintering method will be undertaken to establish the viability of this technique for use with a wide range of ceramic materials and particularly to understand the underlying mechanisms which cause the flash sintering effect. A flexible flash sintering facility will be established which can be used to flash sinter a wide range of ceramic materials. Composite materials with varying electrical conductivity will be flash sintered under different conditions. The results will used to understand the effect of both the material properties and the variables involved in the process (e.g. electric field strength, current, voltage, and temperature) on the observed flash sintering behaviour. Materials will be characterised by measuring their density, imaging using scanning electron microscopy and mapping the chemical composition, and using X-ray diffraction to determine any changes to the phase composition of the materials caused by the flash sintering process. New insights will be gained by flash sintering for the first time a structure made of layers of ceramic composite materials graded by composition and examining how the flash sintering behaviour changes compared to samples containing each individual composition. The results of this project will be used by our industrial project partners Lucideon and Morgan Advanced Materials in the industrial development and application of flash sintering technology.