Low‐Temperature Rapid Synthesis of Rod‐Like ZrB2 Powders by Molten‐Salt and Microwave Co‐Assisted Carbothermal Reduction

Abstract

A novel molten‐salt and microwave coassisted carbothermal reduction (termed as MSM‐CTR) method was developed to prepare ZrB2 powders from raw materials of ZrO2, B4C, and amorphous carbon. The results indicated that the carbothermal reduction reaction for synthesizing ZrB2 was initiated at the temperature as low as 1150°C, and phase pure ZrB2 powders were obtained after only 20 min at 1200°C, which were significantly milder than that of the conventional CTR method as well as the modified CTR method even using active metal as additional reducing agents. More interestingly, the as‐obtained ZrB2 powders consisted of well‐defined single‐crystalline nanorods, which had diameters of 40–80 nm and high aspect ratios of >10. These results demonstrated that the MSM‐CTR is a simple and efficient route for preparation of high‐quality ZrB2 powders.