TODAY: Advanced Ceramic Processing and Manufacturing at NIST

Russell Maier is a materials research scientist in the materials measurement laboratory (MML) at NIST, Gaithersburg.  Russell completed his Ph.D. in materials science at Penn State University in 2014, he went on to a two-year NRC postdoc at NIST in the material measurement science division (MMSD), and he has been a staff scientist in the materials structure and data group 643.08 since 2016.  Russell’s research background is in metrology of point defects in complex oxides.  His current research is focused on ceramic additive manufacturing (AM), and current projects include metrology of feedstock properties/rheology for printable ceramic pastes and development of in situ measurements of cold-sintering processes.

Abstract: The material measurement laboratory MML at NIST is a metrology lab dedicated to improving materials measurement sciences with the goal of developing reference measurements, tools, and procedures.  The MML Materials Structure and Data Group is pursuing research in advanced ceramic processing that includes ceramic additive manufacturing (AM) and cold-sintering.  AM of metals and polymers have already made large advances in commercial applications facilitated by the availability of data-driven approaches that have helped improve predictive modeling capabilities for AM processes.  In contrast, the development of ceramic AM has been slower to develop, with the lack of adequate computer simulations cited by industrial stakeholders as a significant obstacle to its commercialization [A.J. Allen, I. Levin, R.A. Maier, Research, standards, and data needs for industrialization of ceramic direct ink writing, Int. J. Ceram. Eng. Sci. 4 (2022) 302–308. https://doi.org/10.1002/ces2.10158.]. 

To aid in efforts to improve reliability of ceramic printed parts, we are currently making progress in improving fundamental measurements of ceramic direct-ink writing processes in order to provide reliable and reproducible data to the modeling community.  An additional hurdle to mass commercialization of ceramic 3D printing is the expertise required to sinter a printed part.  Recent advancements in cold-sintering (sintering ceramics to full density at fractions of traditional processing temperatures) are being explored as methods to integrate ceramic AM with more user-friendly and carbon-reducing post-processing steps.  In situ test fixtures have been built at NIST and measurements have recently been conducted on cold-sintered materials at synchrotron beamlines [A.J. Allen, I. Levin, R.A. Maier, S.E. Witt, F. Zhang, I. Kuzmenko, In situ characterization of ceramic cold sintering by small‐angle scattering, J. Am. Ceram. Soc. 104 (2021) 2442–2448. https://doi.org/10.1111/jace.17664].