In ICC, isostatic pressing is follo

In ICC, isostatic pressing is followed by pressureless drying. In this case, the shape of the particles is largely determined by Stage I, with negligible shape change during Stage II. Indeed, during Stage I, because of the pressure-assisted dissolution, the particles show a tendency to modify their shape toward the thermodynamic minimum. This is represented by a perfect sphere in the case of isotropic materials, like glasses, whereas more complex shapes might be obtained inthe case of crystalline materials with anisotropic surface energies along different crystallographic directions. As an example, spherical cold sintered fused silica powders are reported in Figure 8(a); the powders are, to a large extent, not deformed during consolidation and maintain a spherical shape.