Reactive Spark Plasma Sintering of rhenium diboride

The simultaneous synthesis and densification of rhenium diboride is investigated starting from Re and B as reactants by using the Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) apparatus. It is shown that SPS represents an effective technique to synthesize ReB2 bulk samples with high purity and density. In particular, a dense product with traces of secondary phases (Re7B3) is obtained in 35 min of total processing time by applying a maximum temperature of 1600 degrees C and a mechanical pressure of 20 MPa. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd and Techna Group S.r.l. All rights reserved.