Sintering

Together with pottery, the human being developed the sintering of powders. After drying, the powder particles, which are only loosely connected to each other by van der Waals forces, are firmly sintered together at high temperature, for which purpose a mass transfer takes place between them. The driving force is the creation of a surface with the lowest possible energy. Decisive for success are the size distribution of the powder particles (grain size distribution), the temperature and the time. In particular, a sufficiently large fine fraction (share) must be present. It forms, for example, the so-called binder phase in the refractory material.