Boron carbide is a highly hard ceramic material. This material can be used to make tank armor, industrial armor and body armor. It ranks fifth in the hardest material list after diamonds and cubic boron nutride, fullerene complexes and monofilaments. It was first discovered by metalboride researchers in the 19thcentury. Scientifically, this material was not known until the 1930s. Boron carbide can also be made by reacting borontrioxide to carbon in an electrical furnace.
Instructions for making Boron Carbide
The following are the main preparation methods of boron caride, according to their reaction properties, various raw materials and equipment: High temperature self-propagation, carbon tube furnace, electric arc furnace, carbon thermal reduction, chemical vapor reduction, direct preparation, jet milling, Sol-gel, solvothermal, mechanochemical, and others.
Self-propagating high temperatures synthesis
For self-propagating high temperatures synthesis, you need a very low reaction temperature. This allows for maximum utilization of the heat released during the compounding reaction.
One of the advantages of self-propagating high temperatures synthesis methods is its speed, low reaction temperature and energy efficiency. Also, it produces a high quality boron carbonide powder. Some disadvantages of the method include an uneven reaction, wide particle distribution and large particle sizes. The residual magnesium oxide, even if pickedled, is not easy to totally remove. It also has a large influence on particle size for the boron carbonide.
A carbon tube furnace or an electric furnace with carbothermal reduced
The major method currently used for the industrial production of Boron Carbide is via carbothermal reduction. Boric acid or boricanhydride can be uniformly combined with carbon, then placed into a carbon tube furnace. Or an electric arc oven. Carbon and a protective gases are added to the furnace. These reducing agents will allow for the production of boron anhydride at a given temperature.
The electrode of graphite has a different operating principle. A vertical curing furnace, and one that is used for horizontal processing can each be separated from the electric furnace. The graphite electrode of the vertical process furnace has a deep arc, the high temperature region of the hightemperature processing area is large and the furnace material has fully cured.
Chemical vapor deposition
Chemical vapor Deposition Method can be broken down into several processes. These include hot wire method; thermal chemical phase reaction method; plasma vapor vapor vapor vapor vapor vapor deposition metoda, laser in vapor deposition metoda, synchronous heating Irradiation modal and others.
Chemical vapor deposit has several advantages. It is clean and safe, produces high purity powders of boron, and so on. But, production of boron dioxide can be slow. The use of gas phase materials, which are dangerous, in the preparation of the boron oxide will require high equipment costs and high production costs. This makes chemical vapor-deposition not suitable to mass produce boron carbonide.
You can prepare it by heating boron powder in a mixture of carbon powder and boron, then you will react with boron carbide at high temperature. Its chemical reaction formula is: 4B+C=B 8 C. Fu Bo et al. It was possible to directly produce boron carbide powder from boron and carbon. While the prepared boron carbide powder is highly purified and it’s easy to adjust the carbon/boron ratio using this method, preparation costs can still be high.
airflow pulverization
Airjet pulverization allows for the strong pulverization, both surface and volume, of coarse powder on the Jet Mill. Yin Bangyue et.al. Generally the coarse powder is pulverized for three times to produce a boron carbide powder that has an average particle size of less than one millimeter. Shampa Mondal was able to create ultrafine powders of boron caride with less than one millimeter in size. In order to synthesize boron, we first created a polymer precursor with boric and polyvinylalcool. This was then broken down at 400-800°C for obtaining boron.
Sol-gel method
Sol-gel means that an inorganic substance, such as a metal alkoxide, can be solidified with a solution. A gel is then used for heat treatment to make a compound. By studying different carbon sources, Sinha et al. Sinha and his colleagues discovered that boric, citric, and acetic acids could create transparent yellow gel at pH=23 at temperatures of 84122°C. This is followed by two hours of vacuum at 1000 to 1500 °C to form a boron caride fine powder with an approximate particle diameter of 2.25m.
Sol-gel technology has advantages such as low reaction time, uniform carbon/boron mixing, less loss at the source, smaller particle sizes of synthesized and manufactured boron carbide, and lower temperature. Unfortunately, it’s difficult for the boride of the natural boron source to be gelled with other substances.
Efficacy of Solvothermal Reduction
One way to make boron carbide is by using a solution that contains an alkali metal. Shi et al. Na was used in the reduction agent. BBr 3and CCl 4 as reactants. It was then heated to 400°C and processed into a powder of boron carbide. Gu et al. Li was employed as a reduction agent and Li and CCl 4 used as reactants. The ultrafine powder of boron carbide was prepared in high pressure at 600°C.
The process allows low-temperature synthesis of boron, which produces boron powder that is extremely fine.
Mechanochemical Method
This new method uses the mechanical method to produce boron carbide. The method makes use of boron dioxide powder, magnesium powder, and graphite as raw materials. You can make a reaction couple with diffusion at room temp. For a boron-carbidide powder you can infuse a chemical reaction at a slightly higher temperature. Tang Huaguo et al. This was accomplished by controlling the proportions of boron powder, graphite and magnesium powder to create boron caride powder at low temperatures.
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