Drying and sintering of ceramic based parts using microwave heating

Ceramic slurries contain water, fine clay and processing additives. Water must be removed from the body of the clay piece by heating before sintering. Differences have been observed when using convection and microwave heating to raise the temperature for drying and sintering of ceramic parts. In the present work, production of ceramic based parts by microwave drying and sintering have been investigated. Ceramic parts with a body formulation of kaolin, ball 14 clay, feldspar and quartz are dried by microwave heating. Glaze is applied on the parts and then they are sintered using a commercial microwave oven at 2450 MHz. The effect of body materials on drying and sintering time of the products are analyzed with the effect of sintering time on the properties using wet to dry contraction, total contraction and modulus of rupture. Results of both conventional and microwave processing are investigated.