Growth of SiC particles in reaction sintered SiC

For reaction sintered SiC (RSSC) prepared at 1600°C by conventional melt infiltration technique, experimentation with two different particle sizes of initial SiC, viz., 0.2 and 23.65 μm, showed that the large SiC particles remained unaltered and the sizes of the fine-grained SiC increased several times yielding well-developed faceted crystals in the final material. To study the process further, compacts of SiC powder of particle sizes varying between 0.20 and 8.99 μm were reacted with pure Si at 1600°C and the resulting SiC–Si boundaries were studied by optical microscopy. A distinct boundary layer with no penetration of Si in the compact of SiC of 0.2 μm was observed and the width of the SiC–Si boundary was found to be increasing linearly with time. Detailed SEM examination establishes the growth of the SiC upto around 4 μm from 0.2 μm starting powder. No such growth was observed in the case of starting SiC powder coarser than 0.2 μm. The growth of SiC is explained in terms of solution-reprecipitation mechanism.