Scale up of microwave sintering for high temperature stable non-oxide ceramics, such as SiC, Si3N4, and dispersion ceramics, like SiC-MoSi2 is still difficult, mainly because of lack of an affordable equipment. For air atmosphere sintering different furnaces were developed, like e.g., gas-microwave hybrid heated tunnel kilns [1] or microwave sintering using an adiabatic casket in tunnel kilns [...

Until 2000 almost all research in the microwave sintering area was confined to non-metallic materials. However, after the first report by Penn State in 1999 on full sintering of steel powders in microwave, now in the last few years there has been increasing interest in applying microwave energy for processing of variety of metallic materials. The present study is an extension of this work and r...

In this study, synchrotron radiation computed tomography was applied to investigate the mechanisms of titanium powder microwave sintering in situ. On the basis of reconstructed images, we observed that the sintering described in this study differs from conventional sintering in terms of particle smoothing, rounding, and short-term growth. Contacted particles were also isolated. The kinetic curv...

Microwave sintering is a new sintering technology developed in the middle to late period of the 1980’s, which is characterized by fast densification for ceramic materials[1]. In recent years, microwave heating has been well employed in the field of sintering and joining of ceramics as a result of its advantages against conventional methods. These ceramic materials include oxides, mixed oxides, ...

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to compare the optical properties of pre-colored dental monolithic zirconia ceramics of various thicknesses sintered in a microwave and those in a conventional furnace. MATERIALS AND METHODS A2-shade of pre-colored monolithic zirconia ceramic specimens (22.0 mm × 22.0 mm) in 3 thickness groups of 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 mm were divided into 2 subgroups accordin...

The objective of the present study was to evaluate the effect of sintering condition on matrix formation and subsequent drug release from polymer matrix tablet for controlled release. The present study highlights the use of a microwave oven for the sintering process in order to achieve more uniform heat distribution with reduction in time required for sintering. We could achieve effective sinte...

Microwave sintering possesses unique attributes and has the potential to be development as a new technique for controlling microstructure and to improve the properties of advanced ceramics. Because microwave radiation penetrates most ceramics, uniform volumetric heating is possible. Thermal gradients, which are produced during conventional sintering because of conductive and radioactive heat tr...

Recent research has been significantly increased our fundamental understanding of microwave interactions with materials. Thermal absorption has been demonstrated to result from simultaneous action of multiple dissipation mechanisms during processing. In addition, it has been conclusively established that strong microwave fields exert a non-thermal driving force during sintering. This force acts...

When traditional sintering techniques are used it is difficult to obtain dense materials with nanometric or submicrometric grain sizes. Microwave sintering was proposed as an alternative technique to overcome the problems of conventional fast heating. However, various problems usually occur when ceramics are sintered by direct microwave heating [1]. Hybrid heating techniques, which combine dire...

Aluminum metal matrix composites (AMMCs) are light-weight materials having wide-spread use in the automobile and aerospace industries due to their attractive physical and mechanical properties. The promising mechanical properties of AMMCs are ascribed to the size and distribution of the reinforcement, as well as to the grain size of the matrix. Microwave rapid sintering involves internal heatin...