Cold Sintering of Piezoelectric Composites

这笔海外旅行补助金将使巴斯大学的James Roscoo博士能够访问美国宾夕法尼亚州立大学(PSU)的Clive Randall教授的团队并与其合作，研究冷烧结工艺(CSP)作为制造超声换能器用压电陶瓷基复合材料的新方法的使用。陶瓷的制造是一个能源密集型的过程，在过去的10,000年里几乎没有变化，直到兰德尔的团队最近开发了CSP(2016年发表了第一批论文)。传统上，具有高熔点的粉末形式的无机陶瓷材料是在浇注前借助液体形成浆体，或者通过在压力下压实，在第一次干燥之前，然后在高温(&gt；1000℃)下烧成(烧结)来巩固和致密多晶结构。另一方面，CSP在同时施加压力(通常为100-300兆帕)和中等温度(约200摄氏度)之前，先在有机粉末中控制引入液体，以致密化陶瓷。因此，与传统的高温烧结方法相比，CSP有可能减少制造压电陶瓷和由此衍生的复合材料所需的能源-超过50%。此外，这种技术可以实现陶瓷相和聚合物相的直接共烧结，减少了增加压电复合材料制造成本的后处理工艺，这些复合材料广泛应用于医学超声和声纳设备。这笔海外旅行赠款旨在将PI在压电复合材料微结构-性能关系方面的专业知识与Randall教授在功能陶瓷低能加工和性能方面的世界领先专业知识结合在一起，并将成为早期职业研究人员Roscoo博士和PSU Randall教授世界领先的研究小组之间的新合作。

This overseas travel grant will enable Dr. James Roscow (University of Bath) to visit and collaborate with Professor Clive Randall's group at Penn State University (PSU), USA, to investigate the use of the Cold Sintering Process (CSP) as a novel method for fabricating piezoelectric ceramic-based composites for ultrasonic transducer applications. The manufacturing of ceramics is an energy intensive process that had changed little in the past 10,000 years until the recent development of CSP by Randall's group (first papers published in 2016). Conventionally, inorganic ceramic materials with high melting points in a powder form are shaped, either with the aid of a liquid to form a slip before casting or through compaction under pressure, before first drying and then firing (sintering) at high temperatures (>1000 C) to consolidate and densify the polycrystalline structure. CSP, on the other hand, uses the controlled introduction of a liquid phase into the organic powder prior to the simultaneous application of pressure (typically 100-300 MPa) and moderate temperatures (~200 C) to densify the ceramic. As such, CSP has the potential to reduce the required energy for fabricating piezoelectric ceramics, and composites derived there-of, by more than 50% compared to traditional high temperature sintering approaches. Furthermore, this technique enables the direct co-sintering of ceramic and polymer phases, reducing the need for post-machining process that increase the cost of fabricating piezoelectric composites, which are widely used in medical ultrasound and SONAR devices. This overseas travel grant aims to bring together the PI's expertise in the microstructure-property relationships of piezoelectric composites with Prof. Randall's world leading expertise in the low energy processing and properties of functional ceramics, and will constitute a new collaboration between an Early Career Research, Dr. Roscow, and Prof. Randall's world leading research group at PSU.