Sintering of titania nanoceramic: Densification and grain growth

Two-step sintering (TSS) has been applied in the current study to suppress the accelerated grain growth of TiO2 nanopowder compacts in the final sintering stage. While the grain size ranges between 1 and 2 mu m in the full dense structures produced by pressureless conventional sintering (CS), application of two-step sintering has led to a remarkable grain size decline to similar to 250 nm. With regard to the expensive procedure of spark plasma sintering (SPS), similar density and grain size results determine the straightforward TSS method as a desirable rival for SPS. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd and Techna Group S.r.l. All fights reserved.