Electrophoretic Deposition of Ceramic Powders-Influence of Suspension and Processing Parameters

The electrophoretic deposition (EPD) of AlN, Al2O3 and SiC, respectively, from ethanolic suspensions stabilised by suitable organic additives has been investigated. A main topic of this paper is the EPD in the direction of the gravitational force. Using an AlN suspension, the deposit weight depending on the experimental parameters was determined. The deposition was carried out under constant voltage or constant current conditions. Several factors influencing the effective electric field strength will be discussed. It could be shown that the conductivity of the suspension results mainly from the free ionic species. By EPD from the different suspensions, green bodies with monomodal pore size distributions were produced. The electrophoretic deposition of alumina from an ethanolic and from an aqueous suspension of the same composition led to similar results regarding the homogeneity of the particle packing in the deposits. The SiC suspension was also used for infiltrating woven carbon fibre mats by EPD in order to fabricate ceramic matrix composites.