Abstract
SiC ceramic is a promising material for engineering applications due to its excellent properties such as high hardness, high strength, high oxidation resistance and so on. The SiC powder is mainly synthesized by Acheson process industrially, which consumes a large amount of energy. In this study, a process of recycling spent SiC powder for grinding Si wafer to raw powder for sintering was proposed. Heat treatment of the spent SiC powder with Si impurity in N2 atmosphere led to the formation of composite powders containing SiC particle and Si3N4 whisker. The composite powders were sintered in Ar atmosphere by hot pressing. The strength and fracture toughness of the sintered bodies were highly improved as compared with those of using recovered powder merely composed of SiC particle.
