MITECON Limited has received a SMART Award to conduct a feasibility study into the development of state of the art bonding techniques for manufacturing complex ceramic parts made from one material only and containing internal channels.

Ceramic materials are widely used in various applications ranging from spark plugs to valve bearings. The technology to be developed will allow the manufacturing of complex parts by bonding simple geometries with a high degree of dimensional accuracy without influencing the properties of the ceramics. This will be advantageous in the growing structural ceramics sector as well as semiconductor industry.

The development focuses on development of of a suitable bond for silicon based ceramics (silicon carbide, silicon nitride) and a suitable bonding process. The bonding process is not trivial as these ceramics are very stable and do not tend to react easily. Several bonding systems are under investigation.

MITECON is grateful for the support of the Scottish Executive, Scottish Enterprise Lanarkshire and UXL Limited.