Fabrication of TiO2 components by Fields Activated Sintering Technology (FAST)

The ceramic materials exhibit many intriguing properties relating to higher melting temperature and good thermomechanical properties. In present work, a newly developed Fields Activated Sintering Technology (FAST), named as Micro-forming Fields Activated Sintering Technology (Micro-FAST), has been applied to successfully sinter the TiO2 samples. The influence of sintering temperature and heating schedule has been investigated. Based on the analysis of the relative density, grain size and microstructure evolution of TiO2 samples, the densification process could be divided into three stages: I) Preheating period: densification by particle rearrangement mainly driven by the external pressure; II) Rapid heating period: rapid densification by fast atomic diffusion under the coupling effects of stress and temperature; III) Final heating period: the densification further proceeds by slower atomic diffusion. High density (up to 96.95%), fine grain sizes and direct grain-to-grain contact could be obtained by Micro-FAST to sinter TiO2 bodies without use of any sintering aid. These results should encourage systematic exploration of Micro-FAST in engineering applications.