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Production and Processing of High Performance Ceramic
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Production and Processing of High Performance Ceramic

A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Manufacturing Processes and Systems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2020) | Viewed by 21106

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Clark Ligon

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Empa - Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Dübendorf, Switzerland
Interests: high performance ceramics; ceramic processing; oxide ceramics; non-oxide ceramics; ceramic matrix composites; advanced manufacturing; additive manufacturing; laser sintering; low-temperature sintering

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

While the role of conventional ceramics within society cannot be denied, high performance ceramics distinguish themselves in challenging applications where they offer superior performance and in certain cases serve as enablers of new technologies. As examples, aluminum and zirconium oxide ceramics are known for both their high strength and high temperature stability, and are commonly used both as refractories and as a grinding medium. Moreover, oxide ceramics are generally very inert and are widely used as dental restoratives and for prosthetic implants. While these materials are white, other metal oxides are red and green and can be used in combinations to adjust the color of finished products for esthetic purposes. Silicon carbides and nitrides are extremely hard and resistant to abrasion, finding use as high performance brake pads and in advanced tribology applications. Ceramics are readily applied in electronic and energy storage devices. While conventional ceramics are almost exclusively insulators, specialty ceramics with piezoelectric and optoelectronic properties are now commonplace in modern electronic devices. Ceramics are also found within high temperature fuel cells and batteries, where they serve as solid ion conductors.

For the successful implementation of ceramics in such demanding applications, the development of new and improved production and processing techniques for ceramics is still needed. Commonly used methods such as slip molding, tape casting, and extrusion are suitable for the production of ceramic sheets and other simple geometries. For the production of more complicated geometries, additive manufacturing has become increasingly popular. While most of these methods are used to produce green pieces to be sintered to ceramics in a subsequent step, direct production methods including laser sintering, are also investigated. Being ever conscious of the high energy costs to sinter advanced ceramics, other researchers use nano-powders and precursor derived ceramics to produce high performance materials formed at significantly lower sintering temperatures. Ultimately, the suitability of new ceramic materials and new processing techniques must be appropriate for the intended application.

The scope of this Special Issue is recent advances in the production and processing of ceramics for various high performance applications.

It is my pleasure to invite you to submit a manuscript for this Special Issue. Full papers, communications, and reviews in the manufacturing and performance of ceramics are welcome.

Dr. Clark Ligon
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Materials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • High-performance ceramics
  • Ceramic processing
  • Oxide ceramics
  • Non-oxide ceramics
  • Ceramic matrix composites
  • Advanced manufacturing
  • Additive manufacturing
  • Low-temperature sintering

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

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16 pages, 6524 KiB  
Article
Manufacturing of Large Size and Highly Transparent Nd:YAG Ceramics by Pressure Slip-Casting and Post-Sintering by HIP: An Experimental and Simulation Study
by Rémy Boulesteix, Cyril Chevarin, Rémy Belon, Alexandre Maître, Léo Cochain and Christian Sallé
Materials 2020, 13(9), 2199; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma13092199 - 11 May 2020
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 5411
Abstract
This study reports the fabrication of Nd:YAG (i.e., Neodymium-doped Yttrium Aluminum Garnet: Y3-xNdxAl5O12) transparent ceramics of a large size by the pressure slip-casting forming technique. Colloidal suspensions of primary oxides (i.e., Y2O3 [...] Read more.
This study reports the fabrication of Nd:YAG (i.e., Neodymium-doped Yttrium Aluminum Garnet: Y3-xNdxAl5O12) transparent ceramics of a large size by the pressure slip-casting forming technique. Colloidal suspensions of primary oxides (i.e., Y2O3, Al2O3, Nd2O3, and SiO2 used as sintering aid) were cast under pressure through a porous membrane. Cakes with a good microstructural homogeneity and mean pore diameter of 90 nm were obtained. Modeling of the pressure slip-casting process at the millimetric to centimetric scale based on a computational fluid dynamics simulation showed good agreement with experimental results in terms of the casting kinetics (i.e., cake thickness and fluid flow as a function of time) and cake permeability. As a result, it was possible to better manage pressure casting parameters in order to obtain large size and homogeneous green parts. Finally, transparent Nd:YAG ceramics sintered by vacuum sintering, followed by post-sintering treatment by Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP), demonstrated laser slope efficiency (51.7%) and optical-to-optical efficiency (44%) with 130 mJ of output laser energy at 1064 nm equivalent to commercial single crystals. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Production and Processing of High Performance Ceramic)
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21 pages, 4820 KiB  
Article
Spark Plasma Sintered B4C—Structural, Thermal, Electrical and Mechanical Properties
by Ruslan Kuliiev, Nina Orlovskaya, Holden Hyer, Yongho Sohn, Mykola Lugovy, DongGi Ha, Miladin Radovic, Elinor G. Castle, Michael John Reece, Pradeep Vallachira Warriam Sasikumar, Laura Conti, Thomas Graule, Jakob Kuebler and Gurdial Blugan
Materials 2020, 13(7), 1612; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma13071612 - 01 Apr 2020
Cited by 24 | Viewed by 3313
Abstract
The structural, thermal, electrical and mechanical properties of fully dense B4C ceramics, sintered using Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS), were studied and compared to the properties of B4C ceramics previously published in the literature. New results on B4C’s [...] Read more.
The structural, thermal, electrical and mechanical properties of fully dense B4C ceramics, sintered using Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS), were studied and compared to the properties of B4C ceramics previously published in the literature. New results on B4C’s mechanical responses were obtained by nanoindentation and ring-on-ring biaxial strength testing. The findings contribute to a more complete knowledge of the properties of B4C ceramics, an important material in many industrial applications. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Production and Processing of High Performance Ceramic)
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13 pages, 3487 KiB  
Article
Effects of the Layer Height and Exposure Energy on the Lateral Resolution of Zirconia Parts Printed by Lithography-Based Additive Manufacturing
by Laura Conti, Daniel Bienenstein, Mario Borlaf and Thomas Graule
Materials 2020, 13(6), 1317; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma13061317 - 14 Mar 2020
Cited by 32 | Viewed by 3010
Abstract
Lithography-based ceramics manufacturing (LCM) processes enable the sophisticated 3 dimensional (3D) shaping of ceramics by additive manufacturing (AM). The build-up occurs, like many other AM processes, layer by layer, and is initiated by light. The built-in digital mirror device (DMD) enables the specific [...] Read more.
Lithography-based ceramics manufacturing (LCM) processes enable the sophisticated 3 dimensional (3D) shaping of ceramics by additive manufacturing (AM). The build-up occurs, like many other AM processes, layer by layer, and is initiated by light. The built-in digital mirror device (DMD) enables the specific exposure of desired pixels for every layer, giving as a consequence a first estimation of the printing resolution in the x and y axes. In this work, a commercial zirconia slurry and the CeraFab 7500, both from Lithoz GmbH (Vienna, Austria), were used to investigate the potential of reaching this resolution. The results showed that the precision of a part is strongly dependent on the applied exposure energy. Higher exposure energies resulted in oversized dimensions of a part, whereas too low energy was not able to guarantee the formation of a stable part. Furthermore, the investigation of the layer thickness showed that the applied exposure energy (mJ/cm2) was acting in a volume, and the impact is visible in x, y, and z dimensions. The lowest applied exposure energy was 83 mJ/cm2 and showed the most accurate results for a layer thickness of 25 μm. With this energy, holes and gaps smaller than 500 μm could be printed; however, the measurements differed significantly from the dimensions defined in the design. Holes and gaps larger than 500 μm showed deviations smaller than 50 μm from the design and could be printed reliably. The thinnest printable gaps were between 100 and 200 μm. Concerning the wall thickness, the experiments were conducted to a height of 1 cm. Taking into account the stability and deformation of the walls as well, the best results after sintering were achieved with thicknesses of 200–300 μm. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Production and Processing of High Performance Ceramic)
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19 pages, 6634 KiB  
Article
Precise Drilling of Holes in Alumina Ceramic (Al2O3) by Rotary Ultrasonic Drilling and its Parameter Optimization using MOGA-II
by Hisham Alkhalefah
Materials 2020, 13(5), 1059; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma13051059 - 27 Feb 2020
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3175
Abstract
Alumina is an advanced ceramic with applications in dental and medical sciences. Since ceramics are hard and brittle, their conventional machining is expensive, arduous, and time-consuming. As rotary ultrasonic machining is among the most adequate and proficient processing techniques for brittle materials like [...] Read more.
Alumina is an advanced ceramic with applications in dental and medical sciences. Since ceramics are hard and brittle, their conventional machining is expensive, arduous, and time-consuming. As rotary ultrasonic machining is among the most adequate and proficient processing techniques for brittle materials like ceramics. Therefore, in this study, rotary ultrasonic drilling (RUD) has been utilized to drill holes on alumina ceramic (Al2O3). This study investigates the effect of key RUD process variables, namely vibration frequency, vibration amplitude, spindle speed, and feed rate on the dimensional accuracy of the drilled holes. A four-variable three-level central composite design (thirty experiments on three sample plates) is utilized to examine the comparative significance of different RUD process variables. The multi-objective genetic algorithm is employed to determine the optimal parametric conditions. The findings revealed that material removal rates depend on feed rate, while the cylindricity of the holes is mostly controlled by the speed and feed rate of the spindles. The optimal parametric combination attained for drilling quality holes is speed = 4000 rpm, feed rate = 1.5 (mm/min), amplitude = 20 (µm), and frequency = 23 (kHz). The validation tests were also conducted to confirm the quality of drilled holes at the optimized process parameters. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Production and Processing of High Performance Ceramic)
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10 pages, 2796 KiB  
Article
Large Planar Na-β″-Al2O3 Solid Electrolytes for Next Generation Na-Batteries
by Samuel Clark Ligon, Marie-Claude Bay, Meike V. F. Heinz, Corsin Battaglia, Thomas Graule and Gurdial Blugan
Materials 2020, 13(2), 433; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma13020433 - 16 Jan 2020
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 2648
Abstract
Large diameter (> 100 mm) planar Na-β″-Al2O3 solid electrolytes (BASE) with thickness from 1.0 to 1.5 mm have been prepared. Na-β″-Al2O3 was processed as a slurry and cast to give several meters of tape. One hundred and [...] Read more.
Large diameter (> 100 mm) planar Na-β″-Al2O3 solid electrolytes (BASE) with thickness from 1.0 to 1.5 mm have been prepared. Na-β″-Al2O3 was processed as a slurry and cast to give several meters of tape. One hundred and forty mm diameter discs were punched from the tape, stacked, and laminated with a large hydraulic press. Binder burnout and sintering were performed in 150 mm diameter MgO spinel encapsulations to mitigate the loss of Na2O vapor. Conductivity and flexural strength were measured on smaller Na-β″-Al2O3 samples produced via the same tape casting process followed by sintering and gave results consistent with BASE materials produced by uniaxial pressing of powders. Planar BASE membranes enable new cell designs, which are predicted to have higher power densities and better stacking efficiency compared to currently manufactured tubular cells. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Production and Processing of High Performance Ceramic)
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Review

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49 pages, 6358 KiB  
Review
Progress on Silica Pervaporation Membranes in Solvent Dehydration and Solvent Recovery Processes
by Aakash Rajawat, Sundarrajan Subramanian and Seeram Ramakrishna
Materials 2020, 13(15), 3354; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma13153354 - 28 Jul 2020
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 2879
Abstract
Separation processes aimed at recovering the solvent from effluent streams offer a means for establishing a circular economy. Conventional technologies such as distillation are energy-intensive, inefficient and suffer from high operating and maintenance costs. Pervaporation based membrane separation overcomes these challenges and in [...] Read more.
Separation processes aimed at recovering the solvent from effluent streams offer a means for establishing a circular economy. Conventional technologies such as distillation are energy-intensive, inefficient and suffer from high operating and maintenance costs. Pervaporation based membrane separation overcomes these challenges and in conjunction with the utilization of inorganic membranes derived from non-toxic, sufficiently abundant and hence expendable, silica, allows for high operating temperatures and enhanced chemical and structural integrity. Membrane-based separation is predicted to dominate the industry in the coming decades, as the process is being understood at a deeper level, leading to the fabrication of tailored membranes for niche applications. The current review aims to compile and present the extensive and often dispersive scientific investigations to the reader and highlight the current scenario as well as the limitations suffered by this mature field. In addition, viable alternative to the conventional methodologies, as well as other rival materials in existence to achieve membrane-based pervaporation are highlighted. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Production and Processing of High Performance Ceramic)
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