Materials Chemistry and Physics, Vol.67, No.1-3, 263-266, 2001
Densification of mullite-SiC nanocomposite sol-gel precursors by pressureless sintering
Mullite-SiC nanocomposite has been synthesised based on a nanoprecursor route and sintered to high density through pressureless sintering technique. The approach has been first to evolve a method to obtain high density, fine-grained mullite matrix phase through a sol-gel seeded route. Nanosize SiC particles (similar to 200 nm) were dispersed in a seeded mullite precursor sol to obtain mullite-coated SiC particles, which were further compacted and sintered to hybrid composites, resulting in distribution of SiC particles at the inter-and intra-mullite grain positions.