Boron carbide is a highly hard ceramic material. This material can be used to make tank armor, industrial armor, as well as body armor. It ranks as the fifth-hardest known material in terms of Mohs hardness, behind diamond, cubic bore nitride fullerene complexes and diamond monofilaments. It was first discovered in 1921 as part of metal-boride research. Scientifically, however, the material was not well studied 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, electric arc furnace, carbon tube furnace, or carbon thermal reduction method; chemical vapor dposition method; direct preparation method; 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 from compounding to carry out the 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 distribution of particle size. The residual magnesium oxide, which is found in some reactants makes it difficult to fully remove the gas pressure. Pickling also has a major influence on particle sizes of the Boron Carbide.
A carbon tube furnace or 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 powder at an appropriate temperature.
The electrode of graphite has a different operating principle. A vertical curing furnace as well as a horizontal processing oven can each be made 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 different methods: plasma vapor method or laser induced (or thermal) vapor process, hot wire method, hotwire, plasma, laser, heat radiation, and others.
The advantages of chemical vapor deposit include low pollution, high purity boron-carbide powder and similar, however the production rate for boron is not high and it requires high production and production costs. This makes chemical vapor-deposition not suitable to mass produce boron carbonide.
You can prepare it by mixing boron, carbon, and passing through a protective agent. Then, you react at high temperature to create boron carbide. The equation of the reaction is 4B+C=B 4C. 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
The purpose of air jet-pulverization is to perform high-pulverization using the jet mill. Yin Bangyue et.al. Generally, the coarse particles are pulverized three more times to produce boron carbide powder that has an average particle size of less than one-half 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 Acid and polyvinyl Alcohol. This was then broken down at 400-800°C to create boron.
Sol-gel method
The sol gel method involves the solidification of an inorganic substance, such as a metal alkoxide, by using either a solution or a sol. After that, the compound can be synthesized through heat treatment. By studying different carbon sources, Sinha et al. Sinha et. al.
Sol-gel is a method that has low reaction temperatures and allows for uniform mixing of carbon, boron, and other elements. It also reduces the loss of boron from the source. Unfortunately, it’s difficult for the boride from a boron source to be gelled with other substances.
Solvothermal Reduction
This solvothermal reduction technique involves the addition of an alkali to boron caride in a liquid solution at very low temperatures. Shi et al. Na was used in the reduction agent. BBr 3 (or CCl 4) were added as reactants. This reaction took place at 400°C. To prepare 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.
This low-temperature method allows for the synthesis and ultrafine grinding of boron.
Mechanochemical Method
This new method uses the mechanical method to produce boron carbide. It utilizes boron dioxide powder, magnesium powder, and graphite as raw materials. You can make a reaction couple with diffusion at room temp. For 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 magnesium powder, graphite and boronoxide at low temperature.
Cataniadagiocare, Cataniadagiocare Advance Material Tech Co., Ltd., an experienced Boron carbide manufacturer, has more 12 years in chemical products development research. If you want high-quality Boron carbide, contact us .
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