Clean Room Processing of an Alumina Ceramic

摘要

Air normally contains high concentrations of multi μm dimension dust particles many of which are organic in nature. Incorporated into ceramic powders these dust particles can cause during sintering the development of localised defects or voids, which would be expected to have an effect on the properties of otherwise high purity materials. We report here the effects on mechanical strength of processing a high purity alumina powder using a high grade clean room environment for the important stages. There is a significant improvement of strength in material processed using the clean environment, which is attributed to a slightly reduced tendency for exaggerated grain growth to occur.