New eco-friendly binder based on natural rubber for ceramic injection molding process

The binder composition used for ceramic injection molding plays a crucial role on the final properties of sintered ceramic and to avoid defects on green parts. This study proposes a new eco-friendly binder based on natural rubber as a backbone polymer for ceramic injection molding of alumina. Three binders with different content of natural rubber and paraffin wax have been investigated. The powder volume fraction was kept constant. Physical properties were analyzed and four thermal debinding cycles on molded samples were applied for investigation of the influence of temperature and heating rate of sintered samples. All binders showed good rheological properties and yield stress was changed with homogeneity between powder-binder suspension. Thermal debinding affected the sintered properties of alumina samples. In result it was found that, between the binders used, the better binder components for injection process was obtained for 40% wt of natural rubber and 60% wt of paraffin wax.