Thermal Conductivity of Si₃N₄ Ceramics Fabricated From Carbothermal-reduction-derived Powder
Abstract Si3N4-based ceramic (Si3N4-5wt%Y2O3-3wt%MgO) was obtained from carbothermal-reduction-derived powder combined with gas pressure sintering. The phase, microstructure, thermal conductivity and mechanical properties of Si3N4 ceramics were comprehensively analyzed. Dense Si3N4 ceramic with uniform grain size was obtained after sintering at 1900°C for 7 h under a N2 pressure of 1.2 MPa. The secondary phase consisted of Y4Si2O7N2 and Y2Si3O3N4 was found to gather around triangular grain boundaries. The thermal conductivity, flexural strength, hardness and fracture toughness of the Si3N4 ceramics were 95.7 W·m-1·k-1, 715 MPa, 17.2 GPa and 7.2 MPa·m1/2, respectively. The results were compared with product derived from commercial powder, the improvement of thermal conductivity (~8.3%) and fracture toughness (~4.3%) demonstrating the superiority of Si3N4 ceramics prepared from carbothermal-reduction-derived powder.