Abstract
Using spark plasma sintering (SPS), >98.5 % dense boron carbide (B4C) samples were made from commercially available and lab-synthesised powders made via a low temperature synthesis (LTS) process. The work showed that the LTS powder can be produced in batches of tens to hundreds of grams whilst maintaining a high purity material with lower levels of residual free carbon (20.6–21.3 wt.% C) than commercially available samples (22.4 wt.% C). The LTS material was seen to exhibit higher hardness values (37.8 GPa) than the commercial grade material (32.5 GPa) despite featuring a coarser average grain size (10.8 μm and 2.4 μm respectively). This is largely thought to be due to the influence of ZrO2 and AlB2 impurities introduced to the material during micronising milling of the powder after synthesis, as opposed to the influence of the materials lower carbon content.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 383-391 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Journal of the European Ceramic Society |
Volume | 42 |
Issue number | 2 |
Early online date | 13 Oct 2021 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Feb 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors would like to thank Professor Peter M. Brown (formerly DSTL) and François Barthelemy (DGA) for the project funding through the UK-France PhD scheme (grant no: DSTLX- 1000092033 ), as well as to Dr. Jethro Beamish Cook at the University of Reading for providing assistance with the PQA analysis of the B 4 C samples.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier Ltd
Keywords
- Boron carbide
- Low temperature synthesis
- Spark plasma sintering (SPS)
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Ceramics and Composites
- Materials Chemistry