PURPOSE This study aimed to identify the effects of the sintering conditions of dental zirconia on the grain size and translucency. MATERIALS AND METHODS Ten specimens of each of two commercial brands of zirconia (Lava and KaVo) were made and sintered under five different conditions. Microwave sintering (MS) and conventional sintering (CS) methods were used to fabricate zirconia specimens. Th...

The purpose of this research is to investigate the mechanical and electrical properties of nano structured cordierite. Nano grain size powders were synthesized through mechanical activation by high-energy ball milling of the starting powders containing 34.86 wt% Al2O3, 51.36 wt% SiO2, and 13.78 wt% MgO. Samples were prepared by conventional and microwave sintering at 1390°C. SEM observations il...

An efficient solid-state approach was established to synthesize (K0.5Na0.5) NbO3 ceramics using calcination kinetics and microwave assisted sintering. Milling of carbonate and oxide raw materials were carried out for 15h to obtain homogeneous nano particles. The crystallite size of 5.30 nm was obtained for the KNN system after calcination through optimized parameters and observed to be stoichio...

In recent years, microwave processing of metal/alloy powders have gained a considerable potential in the field of material synthesis. Microwave heating is recognized for its various advantages, such as: time and energy saving, very rapid heating rates, considerably reduced processing cycle time and temperature, fine microstructures and improved mechanical properties, better product performance,...

Conventional flash sintering is difficult to adapt ceramics with a very low electrical conductivity like pure alumina. Alternatively, the latter can be heated by microwave/matter interaction due dielectric losses. Microwave energy also preferable as it allows rapid contactless and volumetric heating that initiated susceptors. This work presents assembly designed for this purpose using 2.45 GHz ...

A quasi-analytic model has been developed to examine energy conversion during the microwave sintering of a ceramic that is surrounded by a susceptor. Low-loss ceramics, such as ZrO2, couple poorly with microwave radiation at low temperatures; however, because the dielectric loss usually increases rapidly as temperature increases, coupling improves dramatically at high temperatures. To improve h...

Solar energy is only renewable energy source that does not depend on earth's resources. Current industrial manufacturing of solar cells use manufacturing steps that have many sustainable issues. So it becomes very important to promote technologies that are more sustainable than current state of the art. This paper will look into prospects of microwave heating for silicon solar cell fabrication ...