Some new perspectives on oxidation kinetics of SiAlON materials

The oxidation behavior of SiAlON materials has been investigated. The kinetic studies reported in literatures were also discussed. Based on the kinetic curves of the oxidation of SiAlON, a new model for predicting the oxidation weight gain as a function of temperature and other variables was established. The application of this new model to both experiment data of beta-SiAlON (z = 3.0) powder and that of O'-SiAlON (x = 0.18) powder as well as that of beta-SiAlON-Al2O3 pellet demonstrated that this new model could be used to predict the oxidation behavior and the calculated results agreed well with the experimental data, moreover, these formulae can not only be used to treat the oxidation for SiAlON materials but also can be applied to treat the problems of other non-metallic oxide materials due to similar mechanism. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.