Anisotropy in activation energy of textured LiCoO2 for the initial stage of sintering

The anisotropic initial sintering of oriented LiCoO2 green compacts prepared by slip casting in a strong magnetic field was studied. The activation energy and the mechanism of the initial stage of sintering were analyzed in order to understand the effect of the orientation. The analysis was carried out using constant rate heating (CRH). The activation energy of the initial stages of sintering for random, a, b-axes and c-axis direction was evaluated from the Arrhenius plots of the dilatometric measurements. It was confirmed that the activation energy of the c-axis direction was larger than that of the a, b-axes direction at the initial stage of sintering. The anisotropic shrinkage was attributed to the differences in the surface energies.