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Bimodal Ceramic Ink for Continuous Ink‐Jet Printer Plasma Spraying
Author(s) -
Blazdell Philip,
Kuroda Seiji
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
journal of the american ceramic society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.9
H-Index - 196
eISSN - 1551-2916
pISSN - 0002-7820
DOI - 10.1111/j.1151-2916.2001.tb00825.x
Subject(s) - dispersant , ceramic , materials science , cubic zirconia , composite material , viscosity , particle size distribution , inkwell , jet (fluid) , sedimentation , particle size , chemical engineering , sediment , dispersion (optics) , geology , paleontology , physics , optics , thermodynamics , engineering
The issue of the low ceramic volume loading currently used in ceramic inks for direct jet‐printing applications, such as plasma spraying, was addressed. Judicious additions of a second, finer zirconia powder were made to the submicrometer zirconia suspensions that are conventionally used in direct ceramic jet‐printing applications. Various amounts of oligomeric dispersant were added to the ceramic suspensions. The sediment packing densities and the viscosities of the suspensions were recorded. The highest gravitational sediment‐packing densities occurred when 2.5–3 wt% of dispersant was used. This corresponded well with the minimum ink viscosity of 8 mPa·s that occurs at the same level of dispersant. Bimodal ceramic ink was formulated based on these observations. The ceramic volume loading of the ink was increased by 250% (i.e., from 2 to 5 vol%) using a bimodal size distribution. This ink was injected into a plasma flame using a continuous ink‐jet printer. The splats produced were comparable, although significantly smaller, to those produced by conventional plasma spraying.