Phase Behaviors of Talc Minerals in Carbothermal Reduction Process

Abstract

In this paper, we focus on the phase behaviors of talc minerals by carbothermal reduction (CR) method. The effects of temperature and carbon addition are both discussed in our work. In the experiment, acid-leaching talc was employed as raw material, carbon coke powders were adopted as reducing agent. The XRD results show that: When acid-leaching talc was used as raw material, quartz and few enstatite can be obtained at 1300 °C, with the temperature increasing, the diffraction intensities of enstatite increased. At 1550 °C, enstatite transformed to magnesium silicate and obvious β-SiC can be detected. At 1600 °C, the main phases in the final product are magnesium silicate and β-SiC. The SEM results reveal that the preferred, as-fabricated silicon carbide has morphology of irregular shape. Relatively pure β-SiC can be obtained by using acid-leaching talc mixed together with excess 50% of theoretical quantity of carbon powder sintered at 1550 °C for 4 h.