Ceramic processing
Chapter 2. General ceramic
processing
Dr. Ngo Truong Ngoc Mai
Faculty of Chemical Engineering
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Powder raw materials
General Preparation and Batching
processing
Forming
Drying
Decoration
Ceramic
products Firing
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Manufacturing of ceramic materials
Introduction
powder processing
forming, shaping
drying
firing
finishing
raw material microstructure
properties
final product
properties
application
Raw materials
What are they?
Silicate
minerals Ball clay, kaolin, sand, feldspar
[Link]
Kaolinite, montmorillonite, felspar,
illite, mica,…
What are they for?
Non-silicate
minerals Limestone, talc, dolomite,…
Calcite, dolomite, …
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Introduction
Manufacturing of ceramic materials
The process used to form
ceramic materials is a
heat treatment of very
fine powders of the raw
material(s) called
sintering. The brittle
nature of ceramic
endproducts demands as
little as possible machining
after sintering. The
ceramic parts have,
therefore, to be shaped
before sintering.
General ceramic processing flow chart
(Reed, 1995)
Powder Preparation and characterization
• Mechanical methods : Milling/grinding or granulation → well
mixing and reduce particle sizes
• Particle size, size distribution, shape, degree of agglomeration,
chemical composition and composition
• → Calculation of composition, batching and characterization
• → depends on the methods of synthesizing the particles
• Chemical method: for nano powders and nanoparticles
• Quality control
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FORMING
• The consolidation of ceramic powders to produce green
articles with desired shape
• Main forming methods: traditional methods
• (1) Pressing a dry or semidry powder in a die
• (2) colloidal-based methods: consolidation from concentrated
suspension or slurry → slip casting and tape casting
• (3) plastic forming: paste-like mixture composed of powder, water and
organic polymers pressed in an extrusion
• Recently:
• rapid prototyping, solid-free form fabrication, additive manufacturing
• → computer-assisted techniques
• →Do not employed conventional tools like dies and molds
• additive manufacturing: Flexibility to produce complex-shaped component
with unique structure features
• Rate is often slow → not economically competitive for mass production,
esp. large articles in industrial application
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DRYING
• Remove physical water
• Keep stronger shape for further steps: decoration
• Contraction while drying: lower pore volume and density
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SINTERING PROCESS (FIRING)
• Sintering is the removal of the pores
between starting particles
accompanied by shrinkage of the
component combined with growth
together and formation of strong
bonds between adjacent particles.
Driving force: high energy solid-vapour surfaces (γsv) to a bonded solid having
fewer lower energy solid-solid grain boundaries (γgb)
⇒ very fine starting powders since the higher the surface area of the powder the
greater the driving force for densification so that higher densities can be achieved
or lower firing temperatures used.
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• Important green body characteristics affecting sintering behaviour include:
1) Composition of the component powders.
2) Density - green components are usually 40-50% dense.
3) Related to density is the porosity content (size, distribution and shape).
4) Particle size distribution, shape and alignment of each component powder.
• Characteristics are interrelated in that e.g. the packing behaviour of the powder is
governed by the particle size distribution, shape and alignment which control the green
density and porosity.
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• Various types of sintering can be categorised in terms of a
solid-liquid-porosity diagram
(1) solid-state sintering (SSS) involves only solid
and pores and so is covered by the right edge of the ternary,
(2) liquid phase sintering (LPS) involves all three
components but concentrated at the solid apex since most
material is solid (< 20% liquid), such as porcelains.
(3) viscous glass sintering (VGS) is the mechanism
by which glass powders densify to solid (viscous flow),
such as in glazing and enamelling, and involves only liquid
(melt glass) and pore space, and
(4) viscous composite sintering (VCS) or
vitrification involves much larger liquid contents than LPS
(> 20% liquid) and is the region relevant to sintering of
many whitewares such as porcelains. 12
Microstructure
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Scanning electron micrographs of Sintered PZT film (left) and bulk (right)
Decoration = Ceramic coatings, glazes,
enamels
• Ceramic glasses used as glazes over ceramic ware, or
• Porcelain enamels on base of sheet steel or cast iron or
other metals
• Spraying a solution on a surface
• Flame-sprayed oxide coatings
• Vacuum-deposited coatings: chemical vapour deposition
• Evaporation of a liquid phase deposits a fine-grained coating
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• Glazes: normally formed in a wet process
+ milling clay, frit, oxides and water
+ applied to a clay body or metals by brushing, spraying, or dipping
+ spray coating: continuous operation
+ interior surfaces: dipping or painting
• Porcelain enamels:
+ dry enamel melts on hot metal surface
+ the process is repeated for a second layer
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