Preparation of Ti₃SiC₂ with aluminum by means of spark plasma sintering

Abstract

Polycrystalline bulk Ti₃SiC₂ material with a high purity and density was fabricated by spark plasma sintering from the elemental powder mixture with starting composition of Ti₃Si_1−xAl_xC₂, where x=0.05–0.2. X-ray diffraction patterns and scanning electron microscopy photographs of the fully dense samples show that a proper addition of aluminum promotes the formation, and accelerates the crystal growth rate of Ti₃SiC₂, conse-quently results in a high purity of the prepared samples. The synthesized Ti₃SiC₂ is in plane-shape with a size of about 10–25μm in the elongated dimension. Solid solution of aluminum decreases the thermal stability of Ti₃SiC₂, and lowers the temperature of Ti₃SiC₂ decomposeing to be 1300°C.

Keywords

titanium silicon carbide / spark plasma sintering / preparation

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