Low-temperature solid state synthesis of TiC from Ti/C elemental powder mixture induced by polytetrafluoroethylene

Abstract

In order to significantly reduce the synthesis temperature, polytetrafluoroethylene was employed to induce the solid state synthesis of titanium carbide from elemental reactants. According to differential thermal analysis and X-ray diffraction results, titanium carbide can be synthesised successfully at the temperature as low as 825 K from Ti/C mixture with 3 wt-% polytetrafluoroethylene addition. The field emission scanning electron microscopy image showed that the size of the as-prepared titanium carbide particle was smaller than 150 nm.