Journal of Inorganic Materials

• Research Paper • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effect of Si3N4 Starting Powders on Formation of Elongated Ca-α-Sialon Grains

LI Ya-We1; WANG Pei-Ling1; YAN Dong-Sheng1; CHENG Yi-Bing2   

  1. 1. State Key Lab of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure; Shanghai institute ofCeramics; Chinese Academy of Sciences; Shanghai 200050; China; 2. Department of Materials Engineering; Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, 3168, Australia
  • Received:1999-01-11 Revised:1999-03-15 Published:2000-02-20 Online:2000-02-20

Abstract: Two kinds of Si3N4 starting powders with different α/β ratios were used to prepare
Ca-α-Sialon with the composition Ca1.8Si6.6Al5.4O1.8N14.2 by pressureless sintering. The densification process, reaction
sequence and microstructure of the corresponding materials were studied by XRD analysis and SEM observation. Elongated α-Sialon grains were observed in the materials sintered
with either Si3N4 starting powders. On the other hand, Si3N4 starting powders with high β phase content resulted in poorer densification
during sintering and the temperature for complete dissolution of β-Si3N4 was 100℃ higher than that for α-Si3N4. The higher the content of β phase in the starting powders, the fewer nucleation sites there were, and the coarser α-Sialon grains were.
A broad size distribution of the Si3N4 starting powders led to the inhomogeneity of α-Sialon grain sizes.

Key words: Ca, α-Sialon, phase formation, microstructure

CLC Number: