Wu, YiquanYang, Yan2017-04-042017-04-042015-05http://hdl.handle.net/10829/7444Advisory committee members: William Carty, David Lipke. Dissertation completed in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Science in Materials Science and Engineering at the Kazuo Inamori School of Engineering, New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred UniversityA copolymer of isobutylene and maleic anhydride (IB-MA) is a new environmentally friendly and multifunctional organic, which can work as a dispersant, a spontaneously gelling agent, and a binder for aqueous casting process. IB-MA was applied to aqueous gelcasting and tape casting techniques for ceramics production. Environmentally friendly IB-MA can work as both a dispersant and a spontaneously gelling agent for ceramic aqueous processing, which can shorten the ceramic production time, lower the cost, and green to the environment. For the gelcasting process, alumina (Al2O3) powder was chosen as the raw ceramic materials. The morphology of the ceramic powders was measured. The rheological properties of ceramic slurries were investigated as a function of solid loading and IB-MA concentration. Al2O3 ceramic green bodies with large size and complex shapes were successfully produced by the IB-MA spontaneous gelling system. The microstructures of Al2O3 ceramic in different processing stages were observed by the scanning electron microscope (SEM). Translucent Al2O3 ceramics were obtained after the de-binding and final vacuum sintering process. Meanwhile, environmentally friendly IB-MA can work as both a dispersant and a binder for ceramic aqueous tape casting, which can simplify the production process, reduce the production cost, and be green to the environment. For the tape casting process, alumina (Al2O3) and yttrium aluminate garnet (YAG) powders were used as the raw ceramic materials. The ceramic particle morphology and microstructure of ceramic tapes before and after sintering were investigated by SEM. The rheological properties of the ceramic suspensions were characterized by the viscosity of the systems as a function of shear rate. The optical properties of the obtained vacuum-sintered ceramic wafers were examined in the ultra violet & visible (UV-VIS) and infrared (IR) region. Good quality transparent ceramic wafers were produced by IM-BA aqueous tape casting process.52 pagesen-USThesis