Synthesis of alumina-metal nanocomposites by mechanical alloying

Abstract

The synthesis of nanometer-sized α-Al 2 O 3 -metal composites can be performed by room temperature ball-milling of mixtures of metal-oxides and aluminium as shown by Matteazzi and Le Caer. The average crystallite size of the alumina-metal composite so obtained is in general about 10 nm. Such composites may also be prepared by direct grinding of a mixture of α-Al 2 O 3 and of a metal or an alloy. The present work is devoted to the study of the reaction mechanisms by X-Ray diffraction and 57 Fe Mossbauer spectroscopy for the α-Al 2 O 3 -Cr, α-Al 2 O 3 -Fe, α-Al 2 O 3 -(Fe-Cr) and αAl 2 O 3 -Ti systems. Mossbauer spectroscopy shows that non-completely reduced Fe, partly in the form of Fe 2+ , still exists at the end of the synthesis and belongs to a ternary Al-Fe-O oxide in α-Al 2 O 3 -Fe composites although it cannot be indexed by X-Ray diffraction. The Fe 2+ component is mainly associated with iron environments in or similar to those of hercynite. Species like Fe 3+ in Al 2 O 3 or in grain boundaries are observed, Fe 4+ and FeO cannot be excluded. Differences are obtained by reactive milling and by direct milling the reaction products. Reactive milling of Al-TiO 2 (anatase) yields α-Al 2 O 3 -Ti nanocomposites. The transient formation of a high-pressure orthorhombic form of TiO 2 of the α-PbO 2 type is observed