Synthesis of Carbide Powder in a Dual Drive Planetary Mill

Abstract

Metal carbides possess unusual properties that make them desirable and useful engineering materials for many industrial applications. They have great hardness values, ranging between 20 and 30 GPa, between alumina and diam-ond. Most of the carbides have extremely high melting points (2000°C-3000r). Some transition metal carbides (e.g. TiC, ZrC) exhibit nonlinear variation of thermal and electrical conductivity with respect to temperature. One important property of the metal carbides is their chemical stability at room temperature— degrade slowly when subjec-ted only to highly acidic environment. The metal carbides are generally very strong at high temperatures with extre-mely high values of Young's modulus, however, they are brittle at room temperature. They undergo a brittle-to-ductile transformation at around 1000°C. In fact, metal carbides are unique in that they combine the characteristic properties of metals and ceramics.