Peculiarities of the neck growth process during initial stage of spark-plasma, microwave and conventional sintering of WC spheres

Tough and dense boron carbide obtained by high-pressure (300 MPa) and low-temperature (1600°C) spark plasma sintering

“…These complex processes are also influenced by application of the SPS pressure producing at least a different sintering versus gas squeezing behaviour. Other details that may also contribute are the SPS activation electric field assisted specific features 19) 24) such as formation of hot spots and occurrence of electro diffusion, generation of sparks and of debatable plasma states leading to grain boundary cleaning, and heating from inside to outside as for microwave sintering. In summary, presented analysis of literature data and of our results suggest that low temperature evaporation can be ascribed mainly to B 2 O 3 evaporation, while the one at higher temperature is mainly due to carbon evaporation.…”

Novel graphite-carbon encased tungsten carbide nanocomposites by solid-state reaction and their ORR electrocatalytic performance in alkaline medium

“…Two different efforts have been made to conduct the composition and structure modifications of WC by incorporating Ta, which results in an enhanced electrocatalytic activity and stability attributing to the formation of a W-Ta alloy phase [30,31]. On the other hand, various strategies have been developed to prepare WC nano or micro-structure such as nanoparticle [32][33][34][35][36][37], nanofiber [38,39], nonorod [40,41], and sphere [42][43][44]. In addition, many reports utilized WC and carbon-support WC as catalyst supports for highly dispersed Pt clusters to achieve an enhancement performance due to the synergistic effect, which will also be beneficial for the cost reduction of fuel cell system to a certain extent [45][46][47][48][49][50].…”

Spark Plasma Sintering of Ultrafine WC Powders: A Combined Kinetic and Microstructural Study

“…It was observed that such regions where the microstructure can be described as 'grains', are not surrounded by the recrystallized phase. While the actual observation of a GB phase during SPS of WC has not been reported yet, certain recent investigations by Demiriskyi and co-workers [Demirskyi D et al, 2012] on micrometre sized spherical balls of WC did reveal anomalous diffusion at the inter-particle neck regions. The group conducted some fundamental studies to understand the sintering mechanism in WC during SPS, conventional sintering and Microwave sintering.…”