Chelate complex assisted cold sintering for spinel ceramics

Abstract

A new chemical strategy using a specific chelate complex for the recently introduced “Cold Sintering Process” (CSP) shows the ability to obtain high densification in spinel-based ceramics. CSP is the technique for sintering many kinds of ceramics at low temperatures, no more than 300°C, enabled with a transient solvent. However, spinel ceramics are one of the most difficult materials, in which CSP typically does not achieve high densities. The chelating agent was introduced to aid the sintering of spinel-based ceramics that include important spinel materials, such as Ni–Cu–Zn ferrite and Ni–Mn thermistor. Chelate complex assisted CSP aids our basic tool box for enabling the CSP mechanism, and points to the potential of applying this approach to an even broader group of ceramic structures and chemistries.