Abstract
During the last decade, mechanochemical synthesis, which can provide the nanostructured constituents, has been considered as an alternative technique to the conventional thermite reactions to produce the metallic-ceramic composite. Detection of the reinforcement in such nanocomposite powders has been provided challenges as a result of low volume fraction and high induced lattice strain. In this work, the mechanochemical reaction of a non-stoichiometry Fe2O3-Al system (Fe2O3+Al+Fe powder mixture) was performed to produce the Fe3Al-30 vol.% Al2O3 nanocomposite. The progress of the reaction was followed by X-ray diffractometry (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). XRD analysis of mechanochemically synthesized Fe3Al-30 vol.% Al2O3 nanocomposite showed no evidence of the produced Al2O3 phase, whereas TEM analysis revealed the crystalline Al2O3 phase. The X-ray absorption by component higher mass absorption coefficient (Fe3Al matrix) in highly strained nanocomposite leads to a decrease in the diffraction intensity of components with lower mass absorption coefficient and with low volume fraction (Al2O3). High-temperature heat treatment lead to crystallite growth as well as lattice strain reducing, which resulted in the capability of detection of Al2O3 by XRD analysis.
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