Dimensional change behavior of porous MgTi2O5 in reactive sintering

Volume-shrinkage of a sample in reactive sintering generally tends to be larger than that in conventional sintering. New techniques to suppress the volume shrinkage are eagerly needed for actual manufacturing. Recently, we have reported that reactively sintered porous MgTi₂O₅ from hydromagnesite and TiO₂ rutile showed less volume shrinkage than that from hydromagnesite and TiO₂ anatase. The result demonstrated that the compositional control of starting polymorphs can be a potential technique to optimize the volume shrinkage. In this paper, in order to evolve the reactive sintering technique, volume-changes during reactive sintering were dynamically monitored by thermomechanical analysis (TMA). The dimensional change behavior measured by TMA was linked up with the reaction behavior clarified by high-temperature X-ray diffraction (HT-XRD). In dilatometry curves, transient volume expansions were observed and they were well-explained by the formation and crystal growth of intermediate MgTiO₃ and objective MgTi₂O₅ particles.