NEW FRONTIERS OF THE USE OF MICROWAVE TO SINTER CERAMICS

The use of microwave energy to produce high temperatures to sinter cer amics, appears as a solution of great interest ( economical in time an d cost, ecological, and may lead to materials with new properties). Ho wever, the microwave-matter interactions are very complicated and the use of microwave is generally limited to the laboratory stage. This pa per deals with the results obtained when sintering a set of materials ( materials with different conductivities i.e. insulating, semiconduct ing and conducting materials) in a TE102 microwave cavity. It demonstr ates that the heating is strongly related to the conducting properties . So, a crossover betwen the dielectric heating and the magnetic induc tion heating appears when the electrical conductivity is close to 10(- 1) Omega(-1) cm(-1).