21. 06. 2006
N. Ordás, C. García-Rosales and M. Balden
Poligranular graphites with high density are attractive materials for those high performance applications in which excellent mechanical and thermal properties are required (pistons, electrodes, components of fission and fusion nuclear reactors...) (Oya, 1997, Snead, 1999, Inagaki, 2001)
The traditional process of manufacturing poligranular graphites requires successive impregnation and carbonization steps in order to obtain a material with the adequate density (Oya, 1997). These limitations can be overcome with a carbonaceous mesophase, a self-sintering precursor, which allows obtaining in one step poligranular graphites with high density and high strength, without the need of any binder (Hoffmann and Huttinger, 1993a, Oya, 1997). However, commercially available carbon mesophases do not usually offer enough flexibility to obtain graphite with the desired properties, by varying the process parameters.
