Preparation and evaluation of Al2O3 plastic forming feedstock with partially water soluble polymer as a binder

In recent years, increasingly more attention has been paid to ceramic plastic forming technologies, which include injection molding, and extrusion and compression molding, since some totally new binder systems have been developed successfully. In this study, a new technological route to form Al2O3 plastic forming feedstock containing some partially water soluble polymer as a binder was developed. The main advantages of this new technology include room temperature operation, high quality feedstock preparation, and 75–85 wt.% binder removal by water leaching. Some basic important aspects involved in this new technology route were investigated. Such aspects include the binder selection, mixing homogeneity evaluation and water leaching process mechanism. On the basis of the experimental results, a conditional optimum feedstock was determined.