Preparation and Microstructure of Pressureless Sintered Si2ON2-SiC Ceramic

This paper introduces Si2ON2-SiC ceramic fabricated by pressureless sintering method and studies the effect of additives, nitriding temperatures on bulk density, porosity, phase composition and microstructure. It is discovered that additives MgO, CeO2 can increase the densities of Si2ON2-SiC ceramic apparently, and MgO additive has a better effect than CeO2. Nitriding temperature also is an important factor. The bulk density of the specimen with MgO additive reaches maximum at 1.91 g/cm3 when sintered at 1450 °C, and the bulk density of specimen with CeO2 additive is 1.86 g/cm3 at the same condition while the bulk density of the specimen without additive is only 1.75 g/cSuperscript textm3. The X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy of the specimens show that the amount of Si2ON2 increase with the sintering temperature increase. But when the temperature is higher than 1500 °C the Si2ON2 grains will decompose into Si3N4, and Si2ON2 will vanish at 1550 °C