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Spark Plasma Synthesis under High Pressure for Advanced Materials

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A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Manufacturing Processes and Systems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 September 2023) | Viewed by 8971

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Alain Largeteau

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Guest Editor

1. University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France
2. ICMCB (UMR 5026) - CNRS, 33608 Pessac, France
Interests: ceramics; monoliths; single crystals; high-pressure structural phases; thermosensitive/thermally unstable compositions; hydrothermal processes; innovative high-pressure technologies; high-pressure spark plasma synthesis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Mythili Prakasam

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

ICMCB (UMR 5026) - CNRS, 33608 Pessac, France
Interests: ceramics; monoliths; single crystals; high-pressure structural phases; thermosensitive/thermally unstable compositions; hydrothermal processes; innovative high-pressure technologies; high-pressure spark plasma synthesis

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Spark plasma sintering is being increasingly employed in the field of sintering to increase the level of solid chemistry reaction that induces a decrease in the sintering temperature over a shorter duration by limiting grain growth. Spark plasma synthesis focuses on a new approach in advanced materials, such as the assembly of various materials (multimaterials), the densification of composites less than their melting temperatures, the welding of metal alloys, electromigration, etc.

The application of high pressure in SPS—instead of conventional pressure which is restricted to the use of graphite molds—with other types of molds allows a new high-pressure field in materials science for refractory compositions, high-pressure phases (diamond, cubic boron nitride, etc.), phase transitions, hydro(solvo)thermal, etc., for innovative fields of application.

Combination of the spark plasma process using high-pressure tools for material synthesis will be addressed in this Special Issue.

This Special Issue, titled “Spark Plasma Synthesis under High Pressure for Advanced Materials” aims to cover an overview of innovation in high-pressure processes/technologies for the synthesis of advanced functional inorganic materials. To this end, we are pleased to invite you to submit a manuscript to this Special Issue. Full articles, papers and reviews are welcome.

Dr. Alain Largeteau
Dr. Mythili Prakasam
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Materials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

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Keywords

sintering
densification
powder consolidation
functionally graded materials
powder metallurgy
innovative high-pressure processes
HP-SPS

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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21 pages, 16812 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Corrosion Resistance of Nickel-Aluminum Sinters Produced by High-Pressure HPHT/SPS Method

by Paweł Hyjek, Michał Stępień, Remigiusz Kowalik and Iwona Sulima

Materials 2023, 16(5), 1907; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ma16051907 - 25 Feb 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1075

Abstract

As part of extensive research on the properties of nickel-aluminum alloys, corrosion tests of sintered materials produced by the innovative HPHT/SPS (high pressure, high temperature/spark plasma sintering) method were performed in 0.1 molar H₂SO₄ acid. The hybrid, unique device used for this purpose (one of only two such devices operating in the world) is equipped with a Bridgman chamber, which allows heating with high-frequency pulsed current and sintering of powders under high pressure in the range of 4–8 GPa and at temperatures up to 2400 °C. Using this device for the production of materials contributes to the generation of new phases not obtainable by classical methods. In this article, the first test results obtained for the nickel-aluminum alloys never before produced by this method are discussed. Alloys containing 25 at.% Al, 37 at.% Al and 50 at.% Al were produced. The alloys were obtained by the combined effect of the pressure of 7 GPa and the temperature of 1200 °C generated by the pulsed current. The time of the sintering process was 60 s. The electrochemical tests, such as OCP (open circuit potential), polarization tests and EIS (electrochemical impedance spectroscopy), were carried out for the newly produced sinters and the results were compared with the reference materials, i.e., nickel and aluminum. The corrosion tests showed good corrosion resistance of the produced sinters, with corrosion rates of 0.091, 0.073 and 0.127 mm per year, respectively. It leaves no doubt that the good resistance of materials synthesized by powder metallurgy is due to the proper selection of the manufacturing process parameters, ensuring a high degree of material consolidation. This was further confirmed by the examinations of microstructure (optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy) and the results of density tests (hydrostatic method). It has been shown that the obtained sinters were characterized by a compact, homogeneous and pore-free structure, though at the same time differentiated and multi-phase, while the densities of individual alloys reached a level close to the theoretical values. The Vickers hardness of the alloys was 334, 399 and 486 HV10, respectively. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Spark Plasma Synthesis under High Pressure for Advanced Materials)

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15 pages, 5548 KiB

Open AccessArticle

High Pressure (HP) in Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) Processes: Application to the Polycrystalline Diamond

by Jérémy Guignard, Mythili Prakasam and Alain Largeteau

Materials 2022, 15(14), 4804; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ma15144804 - 09 Jul 2022

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2270

Abstract

High-Pressure (HP) technology allows new possibilities of processing by Spark Plasma Synthesis (SPS). This process is mainly involved in the sintering process and for bonding, growing and reaction. High-Pressure tools combined with SPS is applied for processing polycrystalline diamond without binder (binderless PCD) in this current work. Our described innovative Ultra High Pressure Spark Plasma Sintering (UHP-SPS) equipment shows the combination of our high-pressure apparatus (Belt-type) with conventional pulse electric current generator (Fuji). Our UHP-SPS equipment allows the processing up to 6 GPa, higher pressure than HP-SPS equipment, based on a conventional SPS equipment in which a non-graphite mold (metals, ceramics, composite and hybrid) with better mechanical properties (capable of 1 GPa) than graphite. The equipment of UHP-SPS and HP-SPS elements (pistons + die) conductivity of the non-graphite mold define a Hot-Pressing process. This study presents the results showing the ability of sintering diamond powder without additives at 4–5 GPa and 1300–1400 °C for duration between 5 and 30 min. Our described UHP-SPS innovative cell design allows the consolidation of diamond particles validated by the formation of grain boundaries on two different grain size powders, i.e., 0.75–1.25 μm and 8–12 μm. The phenomena explanation is proposed by comparison with the High Pressure High Temperature (HP-HT) (Belt, toroidal-Bridgman, multi-anvils (cubic)) process conventionally used for processing binderless polycrystalline diamond (binderless PCD). It is shown that using UHP-SPS, binderless diamond can be sintered at very unexpected P-T conditions, typically ~10 GPa and 500–1000 °C lower in typical HP-HT setups. This makes UHP-SPS a promising tool for the sintering of other high-pressure materials at non-equilibrium conditions and a potential industrial transfer with low environmental fingerprints could be considered. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Spark Plasma Synthesis under High Pressure for Advanced Materials)

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10 pages, 8604 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Powder Metallurgical Processing and Characterization of Molybdenum Addition to Tungsten Heavy Alloys by Spark Plasma Sintering

by A. Raja Annamalai, A. Muthuchamy, Muthe Srikanth, Senthilnathan Natarajan, Shashank Acharya, Anup Khisti and Chun-Ping Jen

Materials 2021, 14(19), 5756; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ma14195756 - 02 Oct 2021

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2081

Abstract

The effect of adding molybdenum to the heavy tungsten alloy of W-Ni-Fe on its material characteristics was examined in the current study. The elemental powders of tungsten, iron, nickel, and molybdenum, with a composition analogous to W-3Fe-7Ni-xMo (x = 0, 22.5, 45, 67.5 wt.%), were fabricated using the spark plasma sintering (SPS) technique at a sintering temperature of 1400 °C and under pressure of 50 MPa. The sintered samples were subjected to microstructural characterization and tested for mechanical strength. The smallest grain size of 9.99 microns was observed for the 45W-45Mo alloy. This alloy also gave the highest tensile and yield strengths of 1140 MPa and 763 MPa, respectively. The hardness increased with the increased addition of molybdenum. The high level of hardness was observed for 67.5Mo with a 10.8% increase in the base alloy’s hardness. The investigation resulted in the alloy of 45W-7Ni-3Fe-45Mo, observed to provide optimum mechanical properties among all the analyzed samples. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Spark Plasma Synthesis under High Pressure for Advanced Materials)

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Review

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28 pages, 11241 KiB

Open AccessReview

Recent Developments of High-Pressure Spark Plasma Sintering: An Overview of Current Applications, Challenges and Future Directions

by Yann Le Godec and Sylvie Le Floch

Materials 2023, 16(3), 997; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ma16030997 - 21 Jan 2023

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 2714

Abstract

Spark plasma sintering (SPS), also called pulsed electric current sintering (PECS) or field-assisted sintering technique (FAST) is a technique for sintering powder under moderate uniaxial pressure (max. 0.15 GPa) and high temperature (up to 2500 °C). It has been widely used over the last few years as it can achieve full densification of ceramic or metal powders with lower sintering temperature and shorter processing time compared to conventional processes, opening up new possibilities for nanomaterials densification. More recently, new frontiers of opportunities are emerging by coupling SPS with high pressure (up to ~10 GPa). A vast exciting field of academic research is now using high-pressure SPS (HP-SPS) in order to play with various parameters of sintering, like grain growth, structural stability and chemical reactivity, allowing the full densification of metastable or hard-to-sinter materials. This review summarizes the various benefits of HP-SPS for the sintering of many classes of advanced functional materials. It presents the latest research findings on various HP-SPS technologies with particular emphasis on their associated metrologies and their main outstanding results obtained. Finally, in the last section, this review lists some perspectives regarding the current challenges and future directions in which the HP-SPS field may have great breakthroughs in the coming years. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Spark Plasma Synthesis under High Pressure for Advanced Materials)

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