The Refinement Effect of Al-Ti-C-RE Master Alloy Prepared by Adding Ce2O3 on Pure Al

Abstract

The effect of Ce2O3 on the fabrication of the Al-Ti-C-RE refiner prepared by adding a powder mixture of potassium titanium fluoride and carbon into the aluminum melt was studied by means of the OM, XRD, ESEM and EDAX etc. It found that the addition of Ce2O3 increases the reaction rate between the potassium titanium fluoride and carbon during the fabrication of the Al-Ti-C-RE refiner making the Al3Ti and TiC phases well distributed. Moreover, the Ce2O3 is an intensive kind of the surface activation element strongly sticking to the Al3Ti phase after reacting on the master alloy observed by ESEM, which formed a new rare earth compound phase [AlTiCe] and accelerated the synthesis rate of TiC particles. And adding 0.15wt% Al-Ti-C-RE alloy can refine the pure Al strongly and remarkably, in which the grain size of pure Al is lower than 94.2μm. When the holding time of refining exceeded the 120 minutes, the refining effect on the pure Al has not faded remarkably, which proves the Al-Ti-C-RE prepared by the Ce2O3 have long-life and stable refining effects.