Molten salt synthesis of titanium carbide using different carbon sources as templates

In this work, different carbon sources, such as nano-sized carbon black (CB), carbon nanotubes (CNT), carbon fibers (CF) and graphene (GR), were reacted with titanium micro-powders, to synthesise titanium carbide (TiC) in the mixed molten salts of LiCl-KCl-KF at 1100 C for 6 h. There experiments were performed to investigate the accuracy of carbon-template-growth mechanism for the formation of TiC, that was proposed previously using micro-sized titanium and submicro-sized CB powders. The products synthesised from the different carbon sources were observed and characterised by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The results showed that the visual morphologies of the TiC products mainly retained the shapes of the as-received carbon sources, that is, they presented an equiaxed-shape with a grain size of 10-20 nm from CB, a shell layer along the outer surface of the CNTs and CF, and a flake-shape with the GR. These morphologies reveal that the formation of TiC is indeed controlled by the carbon-templategrowth mechanism.

Automated summary

The study investigated the influence of carbon-template-growth mechanism on the synthesis of titanium carbide, showing that the visual morphologies of the TiC products mainly retained the shapes of the original carbon sources, confirming the control role of the carbon-template-growth mechanism in TiC formation.