Slip casting of silicon nitride

Slip casting is a well established technique for the manufacture of traditional ceramic bodies, such as clays and whitewares. It combines complex shaping with high green densities, resulting in low shrinkage and good densification behaviour.This method, however, has received little attention in the field of engineering ceramics especially with regard to silicon nitride. Commercial fabrication of silicon nitride, a major contender for high temperature applications due to its excellent thermomechanical properties, has been confined to hot pressing. This is an expensive process and has geometrical limitations.Slip casting, followed by sintering, has been identified as a potentially economical alternative fabrication method, however a number of parameters have to be optimized before a good slip cast silicon nitride body can be made. The aim of the present work is to control parameters such as pH, viscosity and deflocculation in order to form dense, homogeneous, slip cast silicon nitride bodies.A detailed investigation of the rheological properties of Si$ sb3$N$ sb4$ and careful control of processing parameters, made it possible to produce slip cast Si$ sb3$N$ sb4$ bodies having up to 97% TD on sintering. Mechanical strength values obtained by slip casting were compared with those obtained by die-pressing. Strength values of the slip cast material was limited by iron inclusions entrained in processing