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Updated: Jan 23, 2026

Spark Plasma Sintering Apparatus Used for the Formation of Strontium Titanate Bicrystals
Published on: February 9, 2017
A Comparison Study of Ag Composites Prepared by Spark Plasma Sintering and Hot Pressing with Silver-Coated CNTs as
Dongming Jia1, Junbing Ma2, Xueping Gan3
1School of Materials Science and Engineering, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650093, China. Jiananom@sina.com.
Abstract:
In this study, carbon nanotube-reinforced silver composites (CNT/Ag) were prepared by the powder metallurgy process via spark plasma sintering (SPS) and hot pressing sintering (HP) with composite powders through an improved electroless plating method assisted by ultrasonic spray atomization. The dispersion of CNTs was effectively improved by ultrasonic spray atomization, and uniform silver layers were deposited on the surface of CNTs by electroless deposition. The property testing results showed significant improvements of the electrical conductivity, hardness, and tensile strength in the samples prepared by SPS, as compared to their HP sintered counterparts. When the volume fraction of CNTs reached 2.5%, the tensile strength reached a maximum value of 221 MPa, which was more than twice that of the pure silver samples. The structural analysis indicated different degrees of CNT agglomeration and matrix mean grain sizes in the composites prepared by SPS and HP, which are responsible for the differences in properties.
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