| Affiliation: | 1. School of Material Science and Engineering, Nanchang University, Nanchang, China School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanchang Hangkong University, Nanchang, China;2. School of Material Science and Engineering, Nanchang University, Nanchang, China;3. Institute of Photovoltaics, Nanchang University, Nanchang, China;4. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanchang Hangkong University, Nanchang, China |
| Abstract: | High-purity titanium aluminum carbide (Ti3AlC2) powders were synthesized by a microwave sintering method using different titanium sources as raw materials. The prepared products were characterized by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The results indicated that the synthesized Ti3AlC2 powders have high purity (97.5%) and even distribution of the grain size when using a 3TiH2/1.2Al/2C mixture as raw materials when the microwave sintering temperature and time were 1300°C and 30 minutes, respectively. The formation mechanism of the Ti3AlC2 is described as proceeding via four stages. The solid-phase reaction between titanium and aluminum occurs below the melting point of aluminum and the main product is a Ti3Al phase, which is an observed intermediate compound for the formation of Ti2AlC and Ti3AlC2. Thus, this study provides a beneficial approach to low-temperature synthesis of high-purity Ti3AlC2 materials. |
