The usually stressed energy and lime efficiency of solid combustion (S
HS) pertains to some specific technologies but not to processing of si
nterable ceramic powders. Use of SHS may, however, bring about a devel
opment of this processing by simplifying, especially by decreasing the
number of major unit operations. The features of SHS that enable this
are enumerated and examples are given of simplified processing of sin
terable SiC and AlN powders made possible by using SHS in the powder s
ynthesis step.