Modern Alchemy: Ceramic Feedstock Optimization by Surfactant Screening

The use of surfactants is essential for the successful compounding of highly filled feedstocks with a solid load of at least 50 vol.-% for the realization of dense and warpage-free ceramic parts applying micro powder injection moulding as replication method. The combination of a small volume mixer-kneader, equipped with a torque recording setup, and a small part injection moulding machine like the Battenfeld Micro-system 50 enables a rapid feedstock composition screening due to the small material volumes required. In this work the compounding torque measurements of feedstocks with and without surfactant will be presented and discussed intensely with respect to a rapid homogenous feedstock preparation with high solid loads. A surfactant chemical structure - feedstock compounding behaviour - correlation can be found in a unique manner.