Fabrication of Nanocrystalline MoSi2 Powder Using Combustion Synthesis and Investigation of its Properties

Abstract

Molybdenum disilicade (MoSi2) is a well known material and has a vast application in industry. The reason of being under attention can be attributed to its special properties at elevated temperature such as hardness, chemical stability, good strength, electrical conductivity and excellent wear resistance [1-4]. There are many methods for production of Molybdenum disilicade and in the current research MoSi2 was fabricated using self- propagation combustion method. For this purpose two series of materials including MoO3,SiO2 , Al and C powders and MoO3, SiO2 ,Mg and Si powders were mixed mechanically and milled for 85 minute . The milled powders were pressed to achieve discs with typical dimension of 7 mm in diameter and 12 mm in height. Combustion synthesis was ignited using an electric arc. The synthesized samples were characterized using XRD, SEM, DSC, TEM techniques. The size of particles obtained in this method is greater than the others, due to the high temperature in the synthesis.