Abstract

Titanium carbides are widely used for cutting tools and grinding wheels, because of their superior physical properties such as high melting temperature, high hardness, high wear resistance, good thermal conductivity and excellent thermal shock resistance. The common synthesizing method for the titanium carbide powders is carbo-thermal reduction from the mixtures of titanium oxide(TiO_2) and carbon black. The purpose of the present research is to fabricate nano TiC powders using titanium salt and titanium hydride by the mechanochemical process(MCP). The initial elements used in this experiment are liquid TiCl_4(99.9%), TiH_2(99.9%) and active carbon(<32µm, 99.9%). Mg powders were added to the TiCl_4 solution in order to induce the reaction with Cl-. The weight ratios of the carbon and Mg powders were theoretically calculated. The TiC and MgCl_2 powders were milled in the planetary milling jar for 10 hours. The 40 nm TiC powders were fabricated by wet milling for 4 hours from the TiCl_4+C+Mg solution, and 300 nm TiC particles were obtained by using titanium hydride.

• Keywords: Mechano chemical process(MCP);TiC;TiH_2;TiCl_4;Nano particles;