Materials and process design through mechanochemical routes

Mechanochemical Processing (MCP) is the term applied to the powder metallurgy process in which chemical reactions and phase transformations take place due to the application of mechanical energy. Mechanical alloying (MA) is a powder-processing technique involving deformation, cold welding, fracturing, and rewelding of powder particles in a ball mill. The technique of MCP has had a long history and the materials produced this way have already found a number of potential technological applications, e.g., in areas such as hydrogen storage materials, heaters, gas absorbers, fertilizers, catalysts, cosmetics, and waste management. Mechanical alloying has become an established commercial technique to produce oxide dispersion strengthened nickel- and iron-based superalloys. The present paper briefly discusses the basic mechanisms of formation of phases by the techniques of MA and MCP; the variety of possible technological applications of mechanically alloyed or mechanochemically processed products are highlighted. The main focus of this paper is on exploring the feasibility of these processing techniques to produce novel advanced materials and their comparison with competing technologies.