• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.175-181
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• 2005

Ingots of rutile single crystals were grown by the skull melting method, and their characteristics were compared in terms of melt-dwelling time for each melt. The method is based on direct inductive heating of an electrically conducted melt by an alternating RF field, and the heating is performed by absorption of RF energy. $TiO_2$ is an insulator at room temperature but its electric conductivity increases elevated temperature. Therefore, titanium metal ring(outside diameter : 6cm, inside diameter : 4cm, thickness 0.2cm) was embedded into $TiO_2$, powder (anatase phase, CERAC, 3N) for initial RF induction heating. Important factors of the skull melting method are electric resistivity of materials at their melting point, working frequency of RF generator and cold crucible size. In this study, electric resitivity of $TiO_2$, $(10^{-2}\~10^{-1}\;{\Omega}{\cdot}m)$ at its melting point was estimated by compairing the electric resitivities of alumina and zirconia. Inner diameter and height of the cold crucible was 11 and 14cm, respectively, which were determined by considering of the Penetration depth $(0.36\~1.13cm)$ and the frequency of RF generator.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.519-526
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• 2001

The effects of methyl isobutyl ketone(MIBK)/ethanol(EtOH) solvent mixtures on the dispension, particle size distribution and rheology of $Al_2$O$_3$/ZrO$_2$ nonaqueous suspensions were investigated by measuring sedimentation density and viscosity. The sedimentation density of $Al_2$O$_3$ and ZrO$_2$ particles increased in MIBK-rich($\geq$60 vol%) solvents with 'Hypermer' KD-1 as a dispersant. The ball-milled suspensions in 80MIBK/20EtOH(vol%) solvent exhibited the narrow and unimodal particle size distribution. Although all Suspensions exhibited the Pseduo-Plastic flow(Shear thinning) the shear thinning behavior was somewhat different depending on the mixture ratio of $Al_2$O$_3$/ZrO$_2$ and MIBK/EtOH. Under a given shear rate( <300 s$^{-1}$ for $Al_2$O$_3$; <3000 s$^{-1}$ for ZrO$_2$) the strongest shear thinning appeared in the $Al_2$O$_3$ and ZrO$_2$ suspensions with pure MIBK solvent. The shear thinning was nearly independable on the mixture ratio of $Al_2$O$_3$/ZrO$_2$ in case of using the identical solvent(80MIBK/20EtOH, vol%).