Fabrication of pressureless sintered dense β-SiAlON via a reaction-bonding route with ZrO2 addition

A reaction-bonding and post-sintering process was applied to fabricate pressureless sintered β-Si_6?ZAl_ZO_ZN_8?Z (Z = 1–3) ceramics with monoclinic ZrO₂ added to the starting powder. Samples with ZrO₂ showed enhanced nitridation and achieved near theoretical density following post-sintering, although this could not be achieved in the samples produced without ZrO₂. Thus the ZrO₂ is effective in both enhancing the nitridation of Si and as a sintering additive for densification of β-SiAlON. Part of the added monoclinic ZrO₂ was transformed to tetragonal ZrO₂, and the ZrN phase was also formed due to reaction with nitrogen during the reaction-bonding process. After the post-sintering process, the ZrN phase remained only in the Z = 3 composition. In the other compositions the ZrN reacted with SiO₂ to form both tetragonal and monoclinic ZrO₂ phases. These differences are explained in terms of the increasing densification and grain growth for Al₂O₃ rich compositions and the ZrN being trapped inside such grains in the case of the Z = 3 sample.