纤维和单分散粒子的处理教程分析.docVIP

Processing of Fibers and Monodisperse Particles Processing of Fibers INTRODUCTION Ceramics including glasses are, in general, brittle materials. However, the thinning to form fibers increases tensile and/or bending strength and leads to the increased flexibility and freedom in the application in the form of strings and clothes. Conventionally, glass fibers have been made by melt-spinning. And ceramic fibers have been produced by thermal decomposition of fibrous organic precursors (carbon or graphite fibers from organic polymer fibers or carboneous pitches, SiC fibers from polycarbosilane; Yajima et al., 1978), by pyrolysis of porous organic fibers impregnated with metal salt solutions (e.g., ZrO2), by sintering the extruded thin green rods (PbTiO3), and by CVD on electrically heated metal wires or carbon fibers (nitrides). Unfortunately, however, each technique, which excellently works in fabricating a special kind of ceramic fibers, has limitations when applied to other kinds of ceramics. The sol–gel technique (Sakka and Kamiya, 1980; Brinker and Scherer, 1990), which is based on simple chemistry and enables low temperature processing of ceramics, opened an alternative way of making various glass and ceramic fibers. In this method, fibrous precursor gels are directly obtained by spinning the viscous sols prepared from metal-containing organic compounds (typically metal alkoxides) via hydrolysis and condensation reactions, and are converted to glass and/or ceramic fibers merely by heat-treating at temperatures much lower than those required in the conventional methods. It has been reported that this method is also applicable to the formation of nitrides, carbides and composites. In this chapter, literature survey of the sol–gel chemistry of metal alkoxides to form fibers, and of the glass and ceramic fibers made so far is given. SOL–GEL CHEMISTRY OF METAL ALKOXIDES TO FORM FIBERS We will start with the sol–gel chemistry of silicon alkoxide, Si(OR)4 (R = alkyl), sinc