Dispersion Stability of Ferrite Slurry in Water Mixed Medium System

The ceramic wet process with a solvent medium system is widely used for preparing of ceramic green sheets. To reduce the solvent medium, we have studied the preparation and characterization ofNiCuZn Ferrite (Ni0.14Cu0.26Zn0.65Fe1.95O4-*d; NCZF) slurry and the green sheet using the water mixed binder system. The 21 vol% of NCZF slurry was prepared by ball milling. The polyacrylic vinyl copolymer (Mw; 60,000) was used as a binder. The mixture of distilled water, isopropyl alcohol (IPA) and 2-butoxyethanol was used as dispersion medium. The water fraction of dispersion medium varied from 42% to 81%. The dispersion stability of the NCZF slurry was attributed to the free polymer rather than the electrostatic repulsion force of the particle. The microstructure of green sheet greatly depended on the properties of free polymer resulted from water fraction of the medium.