Tin oxide based powders without additives present low densification even at high sintering temperatures. Different metal cations such as Fe3+, Mn2+ and Cu2+ are introduced into such powders and induce pore volume reduction during sintering. In this work, SnO2 based powders were prepared with different amounts of Mg2+ and Fe3+ by a polymeric chemical process derived from Pechini's method. All samples presented high initial densification rate when sintered by fast firing. SnO2 samples containing 5 mol % of iron ions and sintered by fast firing at 1200 °C during 30 s were denser than samples with the same composition but sintered by conventional method, e.g., 1200 °C during 4 h at 10 °C/min. The fast densification could be understood considering the role of the surface on the sintering phenomenon. The surface saturation was verified by electrokinetic mobility measurements and reported results.
SnO2; sintering; additives; surfaces
