Title Participants Abstract "UV-Curing Assisted Direct Ink Writing of Dense, Crack-Free, and High-Performance Zirconia-Based Composites With Aligned Alumina Platelets" "Shuigen Huang, Jeroen Soete, Bart Van Meerbeek, Jef Vleugels, Fei Zhang" "Additive manufacturing (AM) of high-performance structural ceramic components with comparative strength and toughness as conventionally manufactured ceramics remains challenging. Here, a UV-curing approach is integrated in direct ink writing (DIW), taking advantage from DIW to enable an easy use of high solid-loading pastes and multi-layered materials with compositional changes; while, avoiding drying problems. UV-curable opaque zirconia-based slurries with a solid loading of 51 vol% are developed to fabricate dense and crack-free alumina-toughened zirconia (ATZ) containing 3 wt% alumina platelets. Importantly, a non-reactive diluent is added to relieve polymerization-induced internal stresses, avoid subsequent warping and cracking, and facilitate the de-binding. For the first time, UV-curing assisted DIW-printed ceramic after sintering reveals even better mechanical properties than that processed by a conventional pressing. This is attributed to the aligned alumina platelets, enhancing crack deflection and improving the fracture toughness from 6.8 ± 0.3 MPa m0.5 (compacted) to 7.4 ± 0.3 MPa m0.5 (DIW). The four-point bending strength of the DIW ATZ (1009 ± 93 MPa) is also higher than that of the conventionally manufactured equivalent (861 ± 68 MPa). Besides homogeneous ceramic, laminate structures are demonstrated. This work provides a valuable hybrid approach to additively manufacture tough and strong ceramic components." "Hydrogen plasma reduction of Zn and Pb bearing residues in an inductively coupled plasma process" "Zhongfu Cheng, Muxing Guo, Bart Blanpain" "The application of plasma fuming technology opens up new horizons for the treatment of zinc-bearing residues. The present work uses a lab-scale Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) setup to investigate the hydrogen plasma reduction of ZnO and PbO from the CaO-FeO-SiO2 based slags. Slag particles were melted when passing through the ICP torch, and the ZnO and PbO were reduced into Zn and Pb metal vapor by H2 molecules and H radicals in the thermal hydrogen plasma. The metal vapor condensed on the particle surface when the particles passed through the plasma torch tail due to the high cooling rate. The PbO and ZnO content increased toward the particle core, implying the PbO and ZnO reduction from the slag particle surface. The increase in H2 to Ar ratio or H2 flow rate, power input and S content of the slags accelerated the process." "Influence of grit particles characteristics on the abrasive wear micro-mechanisms of NbC-Ni and WC-Co hard materials" "Shuigen Huang, Jef Vleugels" "CaO solubility in the FeOt-SiO2-CaO-Al2O3-(ZnO, Cr2O3) system at 1200 and 1250°C under pO2 of 10-10 atm" "Shuigen Huang, Bart Blanpain, Muxing Guo" "Influence of abrasive characteristics on the wear micro-mechanisms of NbC and WC cermets during three-body abrasion" "Shuigen Huang, Jef Vleugels" "High Entropy Carbide - Ni based cermets prepared by in-situ carbothermal reduction of transition metal oxides" "Zahid Anwer, Jef Vleugels, Shuigen Huang" "Fully dense high entropy carbide (Nb0.2Ta0.2V0.2Ti0.2W0.2)C - 10.64 wt.% Ni based cermets were prepared by in-situ the carbothermal reduction of mixtures of transition metal oxides from Group IV, V and VIB by a one-step reactive sintering technique. The molar ratio of metal oxides and graphite in the starting powder mixtures was varied and the evolution of the microstructure, grain size and morphology of the HEC phase was studied in detail. The in-situ carbothermal reduction of oxides resulted in a high entropy carbide phase with a homogeneous backscattered electron atomic number contrast with an extremely faint core-rim structure. This study demonstrates a facile and cost-effective alternative synthesis approach to prepare chemically complex high entropy carbide based cermets in a one-step pressureless sintering cycle. The two-phase HEC-Ni cermets exhibits an excellent hardness around 16.50 GPa and an acceptable fracture toughness around 7.5 MPa.m1/2." "Cu-infiltrated (Nb,W)C solid solution carbides" "Shuigen Huang, Jef Vleugels" "The impact of granulation on the mineralogy of a modified-BOF slag and the effect on kinetics and compressive strength after alkali activation" "Bart Blanpain, Yiannis Pontikes" "Effect of Linz-Donawitz slag addition on the hot stage slag mineralogy and fuming conditions: Output slag modification during the industrial Zn fuming operation" "Yannan Wang, Muxing Guo, Shuigen Huang" "Effect of carbon and tungsten content on the phase equilibria, microstructure, and mechanical properties of (Nb,W)C-Ni cermets" "Jinhua Huang, Shuigen Huang, Jef Vleugels"