Rapid refinement of SiC particles by a novel milling process with balls of multiple sizes
Jingkun Li, Xueping Ren, Yanling Zhang, Hongliang Hou, Shanshan Hu
Abstract
Silicon carbide (SiC) has been widely used in industries due to its advantages of wide bandgap, high mechanical and thermal properties, attractive thermal shock resistance and conductivity. To enhance the propertis of the components made of SiC, ball-milling is usually adopted to refine SiC particles before fabrication. However, these existing ball-milling processes are either time-consuming or costly. In this work, a cost-effective and efficient process was proposed to refine SiC particles by using balls of diameters ranging from 5 to 15 mm. The average size of SiC, Dv(50) and Dv(90), decreased dramatically from 39.7 and 111 μm to 7.51 and 19 μm after 5 h, with a reduction of 81.1% and 82.9%, respectively. Neither oxidation nor reaction occurred during the milling process for 5 h. Moreover, the irregular particles are distributed homogeneously without any impurities.