The advantage of Sintered Tabular Alumina is apparent comparing with Fused Alumina. Sintered Tabular alumina is sintered corundum produced by the process of milling, forming, drying, and sintering high-purity industrial alumina powder as raw material. The sintering process is the most important process to control the quality of the tabular corundum. The alumina ball will be sintered by a rapid heating and cooling process to get fully developed tabular shape crystals. The crystal diameter ranges from 40-200um, and the crystal contains many closed pores of 5-15um, but there are very few open pores.
Sintered Tabular alumina has the characteristics of
high purity Al2O3 99.5%,
high crystal strength,
good thermal shock resistance
low thermal shrinkage,
high bulk density,
and high thermal load strength
Compared with fused corundum, it has obvious advantages in the following aspects:
- Sintered Tabular Alumina has high purity and few impurities. That can improve the corrosion resistance and spalling resistance of refractory materials under high-temperature conditions.
- When used as a castable and raw material for shaped refractory products, the plate-shaped alumina has a low water absorption rate, which can reduce the consumption of binder and water.
- The regular particles of sintered tabular alumina can increase the fluidity of refractory castables.
- The volume density is high and the crystals are denser. That can increase the strength and volume stability of refractory products.
- Excellent thermal shock resistance for continuous casting production. That feature can reduce the corrosion of various components by molten steel. In the meantime, extend the service life of components. And also reduce maintenance costs. The application includes induction furnace parts such as lining materials, iron ditch materials, nozzles, sliding plates, and other products.
- Sintered tabular alumina is the main raw material to make purging plugs, tundish nozzle, slag Arresting Dart, porous plug. It has good resistance to slag permeability, and thermal shock resistance is better than that of zirconia alumina. The main porous plug is made from tabular alumina adding magnesia-aluminum spinel or zirconia. The European and American markets are mainly made of sintered tabular alumina adding spinel or refractory cement.
In short, with the improvement of continuous casting technology and the upgrade of equipment production lines, the application prospects of sintered tabular alumina will be broader and will gradually replace fused alumina.