Preparation of Nano-TiC Powders by In-situ Carbothermal Method in Vacuum

Nano-titanium carbide （TiC） was prepared by in-situ carbothermal reduction under vacuum condition using the precursor synthesized by sol-gel method with tetrabutyl titanate（Ti（C₄H₉O）₄） and sucrose as titanium and carbon sources,respectively. X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscope were respectively employed to analyze the phase composition and morphology of the obtained samples,and the size of the TiC crystals was calculated by Scherrer formula from the XRD data. The results show that nano-TiC can be synthesized at 1 300 ℃ in vacuum,and the purity of TiC increases while the crystal size decreases with increase in carbon content. When the carbothermal reduction temperature increases from 1 300 ℃ to 1 500 ℃,the morphology of TiC changes from long bars with about 100 nm of size to sphere particles with 20~30 nm of diameter,but the phase content of TiO is increased unexpectedly.