Sintering of titania nanoceramic: Densification and grain growth

Two-step sintering (TSS) has been applied in the current study to suppress the accelerated grain growth of TiO 2 nanopowder compacts in the final sintering stage. While the grain size ranges between 1 and 2 μm in the full dense structures produced by pressureless conventional sintering (CS), application of two-step sintering has led to a remarkable grain size decline to ∼250 nm. With regard to the expensive procedure of spark plasma sintering (SPS), similar density and grain size results determine the straightforward TSS method as a desirable rival for SPS.