Processing of mesocarbon microbeads to high-performance materials: Part I. Studies towards the sintering mechanism

Owing to their exceptional properties, carbon-carbon composites have a variety of important applications. One attractive approach for the efficient and low-cost production of such materials is to utilize the unique sintering ability of mesocarbon microbeads (MCMB). However, the mechanism of MCMB sintering is not fully understood. In this work, detailed studies are made towards this goal, using dilatometric, thermogravimetric, and mass spectrometry techniques along with microstructural analysis. It is shown by independent measurements that significant changes in pycnometric density, mass loss, and shrinkage all occur in the same temperature range (800-1200 K). Based on the obtained results, a new explanation is suggested for the high sinterability of the investigated material, which includes two main stages: (i) neck formation between particles by a viscous phase non-densifying sintering mechanism (<800 K); (ii) rapid sample shrinkage due to crystallographic transformations leading to changes of theoretical particle density in the temperature range 800-1200 K.