Preparation of nanostructured TiO2 ceramics by spark plasma sintering

The effect of spark plasma sintering (SPS) on the densification of TiO2 ceramics was investigated using a nanocrystalline TiO2 powder. A fully-dense TiO2 specimen with an average grain size of ∼200 nm was obtained by SPS at 700 °C for 1 h. In contrast, a theoretical density specimen could only be obtained using conventional sintering above 900 °C for 1 h with an average grain size of 1–2 μm.