Techniques of Powder Preparation

Abstract

Apart from the classical methods of powder preparation — some of them fifty to one hundred years old — there are now practically innumerable new methods available which lead to high-quality (with respect to size, shape and purity) powders of oxide and non-oxide ceramic materials. Many of these new methods are, again, variants of and/or improvements over the well-known procedures used by the industry. The other point that merits mention is that notwithstanding the claimed high quality of the powders, many of the new and elegant methods deal with only gram-quantities of material and (especially in case of vapour-phase reactions) have a very slow rate of powder generation. This indicates that a success in the upscaling of many such otherwise attractive processes while maintaining the product quality is not guaranteed at the present stage.