A method has been demonstrated to debind rapidly green multilayer ceramic capacitors by a thermal route. The binder consists of a blend of an acrylic polymer and a polyester adipate; the dielectric is a titanate-based material. The thermal decomposition kinetics of the binder, the gas permeability of the open-pore green body, and the failure conditions of the green body were determined from the results of both experiments and modeling. An algorithm based on variational calculus was then used to prescribe a rapid heating schedule for binder removal, without introducing defects into the green components. The cycle developed was 80% shorter than the corresponding cycle used in industry.

Keywords: Binder removal; multilayer ceramic capacitors