Warm pressing of zirconia nanoparticles by the spark plasma sintering technique

Zirconia nanoparticles were densified by pressureless sintering and spark plasma sintering (SPS). The evolution of relative density and pore size distribution in powder compacts during these sintering processes were compared. It was found that pore size increase was suppressed during SPS and that this facilitated the densification. The combined sintering process (low-temperature pre-sintering by SPS followed by pressureless sintering) was performed to confirm the advantage of the low-temperature SPS technique (referred to as SPS warm pressing). (C) 2008 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.