LAUSR

Abstract The effect of fatty acid structure of polyethyleneimine (PEI)-fatty acid complex, which was designed as a polymer dispersant for multi-component non-aqueous slurries, on the overall processing chain of Si3N4 ceramics involving slurry stabilization, spray drying, compaction, and liquid sintering was investigated using PEI-oleic acid (PEI-OA) and PEI-isostearic (PEI-ISA) complexes. Si3N4-Y2O3-Al2O3-AlN-TiO2/toluene slurries were selected as a real model for Si3N4-based multicomponent slurries. It was observed that both PEI-OA and PEI-ISA can stabilize Si3N4-Y2O3-Al2O3-AlN-TiO2/toluene slurries; however, the PEI-ISA system tended to have slightly higher slurry viscosity, which was suspected to be due to the interactions between protruded PEI segments among short ISA chains. The spray-dried granules from PEI-ISA-stabilized slurry were observed to have filled structures with higher surface roughness whereas those prepared from PEI-OA-stabilized slurry were observed to have hollow-structured granules. The granules prepared from PEI-OA slurry had improved flow and compaction properties with higher relative density of green compacts compared with those prepared from PEI-ISA-stabilized slurry, whereas the relative density and microstructural homogeneity of S3N4 ceramics sintered at 1600 °C for 2 h were observed to be higher for the PEI-ISA system. It is suspected that PEI-OA effectively improved the dispersion stability of multicomponent slurries and flow/compaction properties of granules; however, the inhomogeneous microstructures of green compacts induced by the hollow-structured granules had an adverse effect on the sintering of Si3N4 ceramics.