Low Temperature Synthesis of High Quality Zirconium Carbide Powder

Abstract

Pure submicron-sized ZrC powder was successfully synthesized in KCl by using ZrO2, Mg and carbon black as the starting raw materials. KCl showed strong accelerating effect on the molten salt synthesis. As a result, the reaction temperature was reduced to as low as 800oC, which is much lower than the temperatures used by most of the other synthesis techniques reported so far. It is believed that both ZrO2 and carbon black had acted as the “templates” in the synthesis process. High quality ZrC powders prepared with the present technique could be used for making important ZrC based composites for various applications.