Molten Salt Electrochemical Synthesis of Ternary Carbide Ti<sub>3</sub>AlC<sub>2</sub> from Titanium‐Rich Slag
Zhongya Pang, Xingli Zou, Shangshu Li, Wei Tang, Qian Xu, Xionggang Lu
Abstract
Ti 3 AlC 2 is electrochemically synthesized from titanium‐rich slag/Al 2 O 3 /C mixtures in molten salts. The intermediate products are systematically analyzed to investigate the formation process of Ti 3 AlC 2 . The results show that the synthesis process typically involves an electrodeoxidation process and in situ carburization/combination process. In addition, most of the undesired metallic oxides contained in the titanium‐rich slag are removed effectively during the electrolysis process, and the removal mechanism of these undesired metallic oxides is further discussed. The influences of different molten salts (including molten CaCl 2 and CaCl 2 –NaCl) and temperatures (range of 800–1000 °C) on the final products are also studied. The results show that these electrosynthesis conditions influence the morphology and phase composition of the products. The synthesized Ti 3 AlC 2 particles possess an irregular plate‐like morphology. It is suggested that the molten salt electrochemical synthesis technology is a promising process to produce Ti 3 AlC 2 and/or other MAX phases from multicomponent complex ores.