Meet our Fellows: Abdullah Jabr

Written by Super User on 06 April 2022. Posted in Featured Fellows.

Home University: Montanuniversitaet Leoben
Host University: The Pennsylvania State University - Material Research Institute
Topic: Processing and microstructural characterization of cold sintered ceramics

Ceramics are recognized as strong candidate materials for modern advanced applications, owing to their outstanding mechanical, chemical and high-temperature resistance. However, such high stability poses difficulties in their fabrication process, limiting it to powder-based routes where high temperatures, typically higher than 1000°C, are applied. Therefore, ceramic fabrication results in high energy consumption, carbon footprint and costs. Recently, an ultralow-temperature densification process, which allows densifying ceramics at temperatures not exceeding 300°C down to room temperature, was introduced by Professor Clive Randall and his research group at the Pennsylvania State University (PSU).

This process has been termed “Cold Sintering Process” and has the potential to transform ceramic industry into a green and sustainable industry. My stay at PSU will give me the opportunity to learn this novel processing technique and implement it in my home institute in Austria (Institute of Structural and Functional Ceramics). Together with Prof. Randall’s team, we will investigate the reliability of cold sintered ceramics, which is an important step for accelerating the industrial scale-up of the cold sintering process.