Sinterização em forno de micro-ondas da hexaferrita de bário dopada com cromo

Abstract

Barium hexaferrite (BaM) is a magnetic ceramic material with a hexagonal crystal structure, which is widely used as a permanent magnet and in electronic devices, magnetic recording media, electromagnetic wave absorbers, etc. The properties of barium hexaferrite are strongly dependent on its composition, type of doping agents, and processing variables. Chromium oxide is an antiferromagnetic material, which, when used as a dopant in barium hexaferrite, can increase the latter s saturation magnetization and decrease its coercivity, making it suitable for use in magnetic recording media. The literature reports on several studies about the effect of the addition of dopants on barium hexaferrite sintered in a conventional furnace, aiming to improve its magnetic properties. However, no studies so far have focused specifically on microwave-sintered chromium oxide-doped barium hexaferrite. In this work, a commercial barium hexaferrite was mixed with chromium oxide ranging from 0 to 3g. Each mixed powders were pressed isostatically at 200 MPa and sintered in a conventional furnace (60 min) and a microwave oven (30 min) at 1100, 1200, 1240 and 1280oC, applying heating rates of 10oC/min and 50oC/min, respectively, to obtain highly dense materials with small grain sizes. The resulting materials were characterized by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), X-ray diffraction (XRD), specific surface area by the BET method, apparent density, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM). The results indicated that sintering barium hexaferrite microwave with and without the addition of chromium oxide yields materials with a homogeneous microstructure and densities similar to those obtained by conventional sintering, which can be achieved in an 80% shorter firing time. At 1280oC, the microwave sintered BaMCr4 sample exhibited higher levels of saturation magnetization and remanence than those of the other samples conventionally and microwave sintered at this temperature.