Zirconium carbide powder is a kind of hard refractory ceramic material, with high-temperature oxidation resistance, high strength, hardness, and excellent thermal conductivity. It has good application characteristics in tool bits, armor materials and hardfacing electrodes. ZrC also has excellent high melting point, corrosion resistance and wear resistance properties, so it is an ideal raw material for making cemented carbide.

The physical and mechanical properties of ZrC have been studied by combining experimental data with ab initio calculations to determine the equilibrium lattice parameters, bulk modulus and elastic constants. The calculated phonon dispersions of ZrC are well consistent with the measured values, and they also provide an insight into the mixed ionic/covalent character of the chemical bonding between the C and Zr atoms in the carbide phase.

Heat capacity measurements of partially-dense and fully-dense ZrC samples SPSed under different processing conditions are shown in Figure 10. The fully-dense specimens show a rapid rise in heat capacity from room temperature to 300 degC, while the extrapolated values are more accurate as the density increases.

SPSed nano ZrC specimens were prepared by a simple, efficient, and environmentally friendly technique using a spark plasma sintering (SPS) furnace at various temperatures. The specimens exhibited high densities and were harder than their raw counterparts.

In addition to the SPS furnace, a hexagram pyrometer was used to measure the densities of the sample pellets after each step of the processing procedure. The results indicate that the sintering process is responsible for a 0.2% augmentation of the raw powder's lattice parameter. This is a minor change to the stoichiometry, but can be considered in calculating the relative density of the ZrC particles.

tags: Semiconductors semiconductor industry