“…The a-Si 3 N 4 , particles dissolve in the liquid and precipitate as b-Si 3 N 4 , via a reconstructive phase transformation. While sintering continues, the b-Si 3 N 4 , nuclei grow as elongated grains and form an interlocked grain structure [9,15,16,18,24,[27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38]. It has been noted that fully dense objects cannot be produced without the use of sintering additives.…”