Low-temperature fabrication of high purity Ti3SiC2

In this study, we fabricated high purity Ti₃SiC₂ ceramic by mechanical alloying (MA) and spark plasma sintering (SPS), and investigated the effect of trace amount of Al on these processes. Our results show that addition of proper amount of Al significantly increases the purity of Ti₃SiC₂ in the MA and subsequent SPS products, and remarkably reduces the sintering temperature for Ti₃SiC₂. Ti₃SiC₂ sintered compact with a purity of 96.5 wt% was obtained by 10 h of MA and subsequent SPS from a starting mixture composed of n(Ti):n(Si):n(Al):n(c) = 3:1:0.2:2 at 850 °C. At 1100 °C, Ti₃SiC₂ with a purity of 99.3 wt% and a relative density of 98.9% was obtained.