Molten salt synthesis of TiB2 nanopowder by reduction of TiO2 with MgB2

Abstract

This research work presents the preparation of TiB2 nanopowders by molten-salt synthesis (MSS) technique from TiO2 and MgB2 as starting active materials and MgCl2 as a molten salt. The pure TiB2 nanopowders were finally prepared using 2M HCl aqueous solution to leach the synthesized samples. The effects of the firing temperature, firing time and reactants to salt ratio on the TiB2 nanopowders formation were examined. The results demonstrated that the TiB2 formation was completed even with reactants to salt mass ratio of 1:2 at 1000 ?C for 4 h. The TiB2 nanopowders synthesized with 1:2, 1:5 and 1:10 reactants to salt mass ratios have different particle sizes. Thus, the average particle sizes estimated from BET surface areas were 59, 55 and 46 nm for the samples synthesized with 1:2, 1:5 and 1:10 reactants to salts mass ratios, respectively. These results illustrated that the high concentration of MgCl2 plays a key role in the particles? size reduction. The above results assured that this research study presents a new low-temperature synthesis route for nano-sized metal diboride powders.