Microwave versus conventional sintering: A review of fundamentals, advantages and applications

Microwave sintering has emerged in recent years as a new method for sintering a variety of materials that has shown significant advantages against conventional sintering procedures. This review article first provides a summary of fundamental theoretical aspects of microwave and microwave hybrid sintering, and then advantages of microwave sintering against conventional methods are described. At the end, some applications of microwave sintering are mentioned which so far have manifested the advantages of this novel method. (c) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.