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In this study, we reported that flash sintering (FS) could be efficiently triggered at room temperature (25 ℃) by manipulating the oxygen concentration within ZnO powders via a versatile defect engineering strategy, fully demonstrating a promising method for the repaid prototyping of ceramics. With a low concentration of oxygen defects, FS was only activated at a high onset electric field of ~2.7 kV/cm, while arcs appearing on the surfaces of samples. Strikingly, the onset electric field was decreased to < 0.51 kV/cm for the activation of FS initiated, which was associated with increased oxygen concentrations coupled with increased electrical conductivity. Thereby, a general room-temperature FS strategy by introducing intrinsic structural defect is suggested for a broad range of ceramics that are prone to form high concentration of point defects.


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A versatile defect engineering strategy for room-temperature flash sintering

Show Author's information Angxuan WUaZiyang YANaXilin WANGa( )Zhiyang YUbRongxia HUANGcNianping YANdZhidong JIAa
Engineering Laboratory of Power Equipment Reliability in Complicated Coastal Environments, Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen 518055, China
State Key Laboratory of Photocatalysis on Energy and Environment, College of Chemistry, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350108, China
School of Electromechanical Engineering, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China
State Grid Jiangxi Electric Power Research Institute, Nanchang 330096, China

Abstract

In this study, we reported that flash sintering (FS) could be efficiently triggered at room temperature (25 ℃) by manipulating the oxygen concentration within ZnO powders via a versatile defect engineering strategy, fully demonstrating a promising method for the repaid prototyping of ceramics. With a low concentration of oxygen defects, FS was only activated at a high onset electric field of ~2.7 kV/cm, while arcs appearing on the surfaces of samples. Strikingly, the onset electric field was decreased to < 0.51 kV/cm for the activation of FS initiated, which was associated with increased oxygen concentrations coupled with increased electrical conductivity. Thereby, a general room-temperature FS strategy by introducing intrinsic structural defect is suggested for a broad range of ceramics that are prone to form high concentration of point defects.

Keywords: oxygen vacancies, defect engineering, flash sintering (FS), ZnO powders, electric discharge

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Publication history

Received: 14 February 2022
Revised: 20 March 2022
Accepted: 23 March 2022
Published: 02 July 2022
Issue date: July 2022

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© The Author(s) 2022.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 52077118), the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (No. 2021A1515011778), and the State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing Tsinghua University (No. KFZD201903).

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