Ambient temperature formation of an alumina-titanium carbide-metal ceramic

The fabrication of a sub-micron sized powder composed of alumina, titanium carbide and iron in a single low temperature stage is reported in this paper. The starting materials were the mineral ilmenite (FeTiO₃), graphite and aluminium powder. A similar composite without iron was also produced using rutile (TiO₂) as the starting material. The powders were ball milled together for 100 h in a laboratory scale mill and subjected to annealing at up to 1200°C. X-ray diffraction showed that the phases formed during the milling step were nano-crystalline and underwent crystallite growth on annealing. Differential thermal analysis indicated that the reaction was complete within the mill with no evidence for residual elemental aluminium. Mixtures of the same composition showed only a slight reaction when heated to 1200°C.