Carbon nanofillers for machining insulating ceramics

Diamond grinding is commonly used for machining hard ceramic materials, but the development of ceramic microcomponents with complex geometries requires alternative machining processes. Through a thermoelectric process, electrical discharge machining (EDM) enables the low cost manufacture of intricate parts that require a high degree of flexibility of the shape(1). The EDM process requires sufficient electrical conductivity of the materials (> 0.3 -1 Sm-1)(2), which are eroded by melting, evaporation, chemical interaction, and/or spalling due to discrete sparks at a very high frequency between the material (workpiece) and the tool electrode, which are both submerged in a dielectric liquid.