Comparison of Conventional and Microwave Sintering of Bioceramics
Abstract
The presence of a susceptor reduces the benefits of microwave heating as it screens to a large extent the microwave fields; therefore, the potential microwave effect on the final microstructures of the sintered samples is lowered. This paper shows that, because of the high microwave coupling of hydroxyapatite, there is no need to use a susceptor to heat the sample by infra-red radiation like in a conventional furnace. The main goal is to process by microwave highly dense hydroxyapatite materials with fine grain size in order to improve the mechanical properties. The feasibility to obtain dense large sized samples with high mechanical properties in a 2.45GHz multimode furnace is also highlighted. © 2015 The American Ceramic Society. All rights reserved.