spark plasma sintering

Spark plasma sintering, also known as plasma activated sintering, plasma assisted sintering or pulse current sintering, is a new type of rapid sintering technology developed in recent years. Spark plasma sintering technology integrates plasma activation, hot pressing, and resistance heating. The main feature of this technology is the use of bulk heating and surface activation to achieve ultra fast densification and sintering of materials. It has the characteristics of fast heating rate, short sintering time, rapid cooling, controllable external pressure and sintering atmosphere, energy conservation and environmental protection.

The discharge plasma sintering system mainly consists of the following parts: axial pressure device; Water cooled punch electrode; Vacuum chamber; Atmosphere control system (vacuum, hydrogen); DC pulse power supply and control units for cooling water, displacement measurement, temperature measurement, and safety.

Characteristics of the process: SPS mainly uses the electric field formed by an external pulse strong current to clean the surface oxides and adsorbed gases of powder particles, purify materials, activate the powder surface, improve the diffusion ability of the powder surface, and then use the strong current to heat the powder for a short time under low mechanical pressure for sintering and densification. The power consumption is only 1/5~1/3 of the traditional sintering process (pressureless sintering PLS, hot pressing sintering HP, Hot isostatic pressing HIP). Therefore, SPS technology has incomparable advantages over hot pressing and Hot isostatic pressing technology: ① low sintering temperature (200~3000C lower than HP and HIP), short sintering time (only 3~10min, while HP and HIP require 120~300min), and low energy consumption per piece; ② The sintering mechanism is unique, endowing the material with new structure and properties; ③ The sintered body has high density and fine grains, making it a near net forming technology; ④ It is easy to operate. It does not require very skilled operators and special mold sleeve technology like Hot isostatic pressing.

It can be widely used for sintering a series of new materials such as magnetic materials, gradient functional materials, nanoceramics, fiber reinforced ceramics, and intermetallic composite materials, and has shown great advantages in the preparation of nanomaterials, composite materials, etc. It is a new sintering technology with important application value and broad prospects.

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