THE INFLUENCE OF DIFFERENT DRYING CONDITIONS ON POWDER PROPERTIES AND PROCESSING CHARACTERISTICS

A water-based suspension of submicron titania particles was dried using a variety of techniques. The resulting powders were fully characterized in order to observe the effect of drying conditions on particle agglomeration. Direct evaporation methods led to quite severe agglomeration, whilst removal of the water by a freeze-drying technique produced powders containing only weak-secondary clusters. The consequences of the state of aggregation after drying on powder compaction, sintering rates and microstructural development were determined. Although all powders originated from a common starting suspension, samples isolated by freeze drying sintered most rapidly, reaching about 98% of the theoretical density after firing at 1150 °C for 2 h. Agglomerated powders obtained after drying by evaporation, using either a heat lamp or microwave oven to drive off the water, required twice as long to sinter to comparable density. Moreover there was evidence of a much finer-grained microstructure in ceramics fabricated from freeze-dried products. © 1990.