Abstract
Pulsed electric current sintering (PECS) was a rapid consolidation method to realize the accelerated densification process by the synergistic effects of thermal and non-thermal (electromigration) of pulsed electric current (PEC). However, due to the complexity of deconvolution of PEC and temperature and thus lack of quantitative depict of electromigration effect, the non-thermal effects of PEC were still not well understood, despite its proven significance. Here, we proposed an electromigration-related atomic diffusion D e to explicitly clarify the non-thermal effects of PEC on mass transfer. Then, through introducing an in-situ electrically insulative Al 2 O 3 thin-layer into the regular current-assisted sintering tooling, we can cutoff the PEC bypassing powder particles to investigate systematically the thermal and non-thermal effects of PEC on densification behaviors. Further, the modified model was validated by experimental data at with-current and without-current sintering modes. We demonstrated that an electromigration-related atomic diffusion D e derived herein can be used to unravel quantitatively the contribution of electromigration to densification kinetics. Our work would be helpful to understand deeply the densification mechanism of PECS and elucidate the advantage of non-thermal effect of PEC on densification, which would be used to guide design and preparation of high-performance functional materials. • The thermal and non-thermal effects of PEC on densification behaviors during sintering was systematically investigated. • The coefficients D th and D e related to thermal and electromigration effect of PEC were proposed. • As-derived coefficients were closely linked with densification kinetics of powder particles. • The contribution of electromigration to mass transfer was quantitatively depicted.
Published Version
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