Advances in Applied Ceramics

Structural, Functional and Bioceramics

ISSN: 1743-6753 (Print) 1743-6761 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/yaac20

Exploring inexpensive processing routes to

prepare dense TiB2 components

C. Tallon & G. V. Franks

To cite this article: C. Tallon & G. V. Franks (2016): Exploring inexpensive processing
routes to prepare dense TiB2 components, Advances in Applied Ceramics, DOI:
10.1080/17436753.2016.1172166

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Published online: 13 Apr 2016.

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 Exploring inexpensive processing routes to
prepare dense TiB2 components
C. Tallon∗ 1,2,3 and G. V. Franks1,2
Titanium diboride (TiB2) is considered one of the most suitable candidate materials for applications
as wettable cathodes in redesigned aluminium smelting cells. In this work, titanium diboride
compacts have been produced from powders using a wet colloidal processing approach
combined with pressureless sintering for densification. The approach has good potential to
reduce the manufacturing cost compared to hot-pressing. Owing to the elevated cost of the raw
materials, the possibility of mixing powders with different particle sizes (more expensive fine and
less expensive coarse powder) has been explored. The outcome of this study is very promising,
Downloaded by [University of Sussex Library] at 23:00 05 May 2016

since using two different particle sizes improved the particle packing of the green material
resulting in sintered densities around 80% of the theoretical density at 2000°C.
Keywords: Titanium diboride, Colloidal processing, Pressureless sintering, Particle packing

Introduction strength, low cost and ease of fabrication into particular

The smelting of alumina into aluminium in the Hall-
Heroult process consumes enormous amounts of energy
and produces significant CO2 emissions1,2 but today it is
a much more productive and efficient method than 50
years ago. This is mainly due to continuous research,
development and advancement in engineering solutions
to extend the cell life.3–5 One of the approaches to do so
is to find inert electrodes (and their corresponding design
configuration) which could replace the current carbon
electrodes (which are consumed or worn) and last longer
in operation. This will reduce the maintenance costs and
the leakage of power out of the cell, improving the effi-
ciency of the overall process. It is difficult to find materials
which could be cost-effective in electrode applications,
and in the case of cathodes it is particularly much more
challenging. The environment in which inert cathodes
need to operate in is quite severe1,2,6,7 and the number
of candidate materials to withstand these conditions is
quite restricted.
Before considering the materials properties or the oper-
ating conditions of the cathodes, it is important to note
that the most important constraint to find a replacement
is related to the gap between the anode and cathode in the
cell.4 Therefore, it is crucial that the material of choice
first of all is wetted by the melt pool. Additionally, the
material must exhibit a superb electrical conductivity
and withstand an extremely corrosive high-temperature
environment, among other criteria such as mechanical
1
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The University of
Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia
2
Defence Materials Technology Centre, DMTC, Victoria 3122, Australia
3
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Polytechnic Institute
and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA
∗
Corresponding author, email tallon@vt.edu
shapes.3–5
This is why titanium diboride (TiB2) was identified as
one of the most promising candidates for this application
in the late 1950s.3 Its wettability, low solubility in alumina
(melt pool primary component), high melting point and
its high electrical conductivity make this material the
only feasible material option versus other refractory cer-
amics and other metals and composites. Unfortunately,
this material is quite expensive to produce (expensive
raw material and high cost for processing the material
due to high temperature and pressure for hot-pressing),
and this could limit their applicability. In order to avoid
such high cost of a monolithic cathode of TiB2, several
different configurations for the cathode, such as a coating
of the carbon cathode or as part of a composite have been
considered.3,8,9–12
Apart from TiB2, other materials have been con-
sidered, mainly from the group called ultra-high-temp-
erature ceramics or refractory ceramics. For example,
ZrB2 has a superb wettability with molten aluminium,
or Ta and Nb borides, but they have not been considered
further because they are even more expensive than TiB2.
The rest of compounds (carbides and nitrides) in this
group are not good conductors or react with the liquid
aluminium.13 Mroz4 suggested the use of compounds
from the MAX phases families, due to their high
strength, refractoriness, high electrical and thermal con-
ductivity, and high machinability, but he found that the
Ti3SiC2 was corroded by the cryolite solution, although
to a lower extent than TiB2. Also, some of the materials
used for the side wall of the cell, such as SiC or nickel
ferrite14 could be further explored in the future. How-
ever, despite of the limitations mentioned before, there
is no known material which could compete with TiB2
as a true replacement for carbon cathodes.

© 2016 Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining

Published by Taylor & Francis on behalf of the Institute
Received 1 November 2015; accepted 25 March 2016
DOI 10.1080/17436753.2016.1172166 Advances in Applied Ceramics 2016 1
 Tallon and Franks Exploring inexpensive processing routes to prepare dense TiB 2 components
Since the materials properties of TiB2 and the operating
conditions of the cell could not be easily changed, the aim
of this work focuses on exploring other options to
decrease the cost of the components. The double strategy
we will discuss in this work is:
(i) The use of cheaper raw materials. The available TiB2
powders vary widely in particle size (from 1 to 100 μm),
purity and cost. High purity and fine powders (with par-
ticle sizes below 3 μm approximately) are the easiest to
process to produce dense ceramic material, due to the lar-
ger surface area to drive the densification. For example,
the synthesis of high purity nanopowders with large sur-
face area has also been considered15 but the yield and
the cost of these type of synthesis process is still an issue
to face in the preparation of such large components. How-
ever, the finer the powder, the more expensive it is, which
makes the whole process very costly. Therefore, the first
approach we used in this project was to combine a ‘fine’
TiB2 powder and a ‘coarser’ less expensive TiB2 that
would act as a filler. We aimed to mix various ratios of
fine powders and coarse filler TiB2 and see what is the
minimum amount of fine (expensive) powder we need to
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obtain high density TiB2 ceramics.
1 SEM images of the raw powders used in this study: a fine
powder and b coarse powder
2 Advances in Applied Ceramics 2016
(ii) The use of colloidal processing techniques. Titanium
diboride,16–18 as other borides and carbides,19 require
very high temperature and pressures for processing due
to their strong covalent bond and low diffusion rates.
Owing to this, the manufacturing and state-of-the-art pro-
cessing require the use of hot-pressing and hot-isostatic
pressing to prepare dense component, which are very
expensive and time consuming. Traditionally, the use of
other processing routes has not been pursued due to the
need for pressure and temperature for sintering and for
the possibility of oxidation and secondary phase for-
mation when mixing powders with solvents, binders or
other organic additives. However, our group has been suc-
cessfully working on the colloidal processing approach for
other borides and carbides for ultra-high-temperature
applications for the past 5 years, and we have shown
that using the same powder, the samples prepared via col-
loidal processing exhibit higher sintered densities when
compared with samples produced via hot-pressing.20
The use of colloidal processing allows one to control the
interaction forces between particles in suspension. This
exhaustive control leads to a much better homogeneity of
the particles in suspension, and particle packing in the
green body.21–24 A very close and efficient particle packing
in the green body prepared via colloidal processing routes
has been shown to improve the sintering behaviour of cer-
amic materials, reducing the temperature needed for sinter-
ing, and in cases, removing the need for pressure for the
sintering stage.20,24 The pressureless sintering option is
very attractive, not only from an economical and oper-
ational point of view, but also, from a shaping capability
point of view. Hot-pressing and hot-isostatic-pressing typi-
cally produced very simple shapes (tiles, cylinders, discs)
that need to be machined to the required shape using
expensive diamond tools. Therefore, the titanium diboride
materials for this study will be produced following this
approach: colloidal processing and pressureless sintering.
The aim of this project is to produce and evaluate
different TiB2 materials prepared from a range of powders
using colloidal (wet) processing of ceramic powders and
pressureless sintering (densification without applying
pressure) in a vacuum furnace at up to 2100°C. Under-
standing how the different parameters affect the densifica-
tion and microstructure is crucial for the development of
the right material for wettable cathodes. The colloidal
processing technique is known to produce green bodies
with higher and more uniform particle packing.24 The
higher and uniform green density promotes sintering
and pore elimination leading to high density reliable
final ceramics.24–26 This reduces the sintering temperature
and pressure, leading to a significant reduction of the pro-
duction cost.
Experimental
Materials
Two powders were selected for the present study (Fig. 1):
(i) Fine powder: TiB2 grade F from H.C. Starck, with
fine particle size (dv50 = 1.5 μm) to enhance the densifi-
cation process.
(ii) Coarse powder: ESK, type S −70 μm, TiB2 powder
provided by Rio Tinto (Australia), which would act
as a less expensive filler.
 Tallon and Franks
The particle size of each powder was measured using
laser diffraction (Mastersizer 2000, Malvern), and the
results are plotted in Fig. 2. The powder was first
measured as received (blue lines), and then sonicated to
break down possible aggregates in the as-received powder
(orange lines). The fine powder has a narrow size distri-
bution, and it is weakly aggregated, since after applying
sonication the particle size decreased from 3.8 to 2.9
μm. However, the coarse powder (or filler) showed a
much wider size distribution with average particle size
around 10 μm after sonication.
Cyclohexane (Sigma Aldrich) was used as the solvent
to prepare the TiB2 suspensions and Hypermer A70
(Croda, Australia) was selected as the dispersant. The
use of an organic solvent to prepare the suspensions,
not only decrease the probability of further oxidising the
powder particle surfaces, but also, allows for a better dis-
persion of the particles in suspension. The Hamaker con-
stant of borides and carbides in organic solvents is lower
than in water, therefore, the van de Waals attraction
between particles is lower.27 This minimises the aggrega-
tion of particles in the suspension and guarantees an hom-
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ogenous and close packing of the particles in the green
body, which is key for densifying under pressureless
conditions.20,24
TiC (H.C. Starck, grade HV 120) was used as a sinter-
ing aid for the last part of this work. This powder was
sourced, with fine particle size (dv50 = 1.5 μm) to enhance
the densification process. The oxygen content reported by
the manufacturer is a maximum of 1%.
Sample preparation procedure
Different percentages of filler and fine powder were mixed
together, 25, 50, 75, 90 and 100% of fine powder.
2 Particle size distribution of the TiB2 powder used in this
study. a Fine powder, b coarse powder. The average par-
ticle size before and after sonication is shown
Exploring inexpensive processing routes to prepare dense TiB 2 components
Suspensions of 40 vol.-% total solids loadings were pre-
pared in cyclohexane with 3 wt-% of dispersant with
respect to the total powder. The suspension was then soni-
cated for 2 min (Ultrasonic Horn, Misonix 400, Farming-
dale, NY) to break down any aggregates. Suspensions
with 0% fine powder (100% coarse powders) were not
used in this study, since due to their larger size a signifi-
cant sedimentation of the powder was observed at the bot-
tom of the container.
The suspensions were then slip cast using cylindrical
rings (22 mm diameter, 20 mm height) placed on plaster
of Paris and covered with parafilm. Once the consolida-
tion process is completed (overnight), the samples were
unmoulded and dried at room temperature for 2 days
and then 80°C for 2 h before further characterisation.
The green samples were then cut in halves and sintered
in a graphite vacuum furnace (Red Devil, RD Webb,
Massachusetts, USA) at temperatures of 1900, 2000°C
and 2100°C for 1 or 2 h. The heating rate was 5°C
min−1, with an isothermal hold at 400°C to burn out
any dispersant and the rest of the solvent. The chamber
was backfilled with argon above 1800°C. The cooling
rate was 5°C min−1.
When TiC was added as a sintering aid, suspensions
with 40 vol.-% solids using the previous formulation
were prepared. The powder mixture contained 50% fine
and 50% coarse powder as optimised before. Sintering
aids were added in 1, 3 and 5 wt-% with respect to the
total powder. The suspension was slip cast and sintered
using the same procedure explained before.
In order to compare the suitability of the colloidal pro-
cessing approach to the conventional dry pressing of pow-
ders, some pellets were produced by dry pressing the
powder mixtures with 75, 90 and 100% of fine powder,
and sintered at 2000°C. The uniaxial dry pressing was per-
formed by loading the dry powder mixture into a tool
steel die, using a layer of oleic acid as lubricant. Pellets
of 15 mm diameter and 12 mm height were produced by
applying a pressure of 416 MPa for 30 s.
Characterisation
The green and sintered densities of the samples were
measured using Archimedes’ method and the reported
value is an average of 3–5 samples. In the case of the
green samples, in order to protect the pieces when immer-
sing them in the liquid for the measurement, they were
coated with a layer of wax of known density.
The sintered samples were cut (Accutom-50, Struers,
Australia) and polished (TegraPol-21 with TegraForce-5
and TegraDoser-1, Struers, Australia) for studying the
microstructure by Scanning Electron Microscopy
(ESEM, Quanta XL-30, Phillips). The slices observed in
Table 1 Density of the green bodies produced using
different percentage of fine and coarse powders
Percentage of fine powder Relative green density/% (respect
in the mixture/% to theoretical density of TiB2)
0 n/a
25 69.7
50 71.8
75 66.3
90 65.9
100 61.4
Advances in Applied Ceramics 2016 3
 Tallon and Franks Exploring inexpensive processing routes to prepare dense TiB 2 components
3 Sintered densities of samples with different per cent of
fine and coarse powder, sintered at different temperatures
and times
the microscope were taken from the centre of the sample
in a transversal cut. Energy dispersive analysis (EDS) was
used to confirm the presence of phases in the sintered
materials.
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Results and discussion
Green density and particle packing
The relative densities of the green bodies as a function of
the fraction of coarse and fine powders are summarised in
Table 1. For most of the cases, the green densities are
above 64%; that value represents the theoretical random
spheres particle packing. The fine particles are packed fill-
ing the voids between larger particles, resulting in a denser
green body. In particular, the green density of 50% fine
powder samples reached a maximum value of 71.8%.
The maximum packing of compacts produced from fine
and coarse powder depends on the ratio fine/coarse in
the suspension, but also on the overall solid fraction in
the suspension.28,29 Lange and co-workers extensively
investigated this phenomenon using alumina powders of
0.23 and 0.59 μm, and reported a maximum packing den-
sity of 68% for dispersed particles28 and 57% for floccu-
lated particles29 when working with 40% fines total solid
fraction in slurries around 40 vol.-%. These values are in
good agreement with the ones obtained in this work,
despite the different shape of the particles.
Sintered density
The slip cast compact produced with different percentages
of fine and coarse powders were sintered at different
4 Microstructures of samples produced with 50% fine powder and 50% coarse powder sintered at 1900, 2000 and 2100°C
4 Advances in Applied Ceramics 2016
temperatures. The sintered densities are plotted in Fig.
3. There was not any change in the density after sintering
at 1900°C compared to the green density. Only a slight
increase in density was found when sintering at 2000°C,
except for the 50/50 mixture which densified somewhat.
The best result obtained for green and sintered samples
correspond to materials prepared with 50% fine and
50% coarse powders. This is due to the high initial particle
packing of the green body. Increasing the sintering temp-
erature and time produced an increase in the densification
of the 50/50 samples. Those samples were sintered at
2100°C for 1 h, reaching values of 80% of the theoretical
density (TD).
The images of the polished surfaces of the samples (Fig.
4) reveal that despite no change of the density with respect
to that in the green state, there was necking between the
fine and coarse particles at 1900°C just to strengthen
the samples. Increasing the temperature to 2000 and
2100°C, lead to an increase of the necking between the
particles, although significant porosity is still observed.
There seems to be a coarsening in grain size with increas-
ing sintering temperature. Despite using particles with
two very different sizes, the distribution of both fine and
coarse particles in the top and bottom of the sample
was studied, as shown in the images below (Fig. 5).
There is no significant segregation of particles along the
height of the sample, confirming the good quality of par-
ticle packing and homogeneity reached in the green
bodies as a consequence of using the colloidal processing
approach.
Pressureless sintering of pure TiB2 is not a trivial task
to perform, as it has been reported in the
literature9,16,17,30–32. Even hot-pressing of pure TiB2 is
very challenging commonly reaching only 90% of the
TD at 2000°C, requiring temperatures up to 2477°C to
reach above 98% TD. Some of the highest sintered den-
sities under pressureless sintering conditions reported in
the literature (90–99%) were achieved by using very fine
(below 140 nm) and high purity powders produced in an
arc-plasma reactor which were uniaxially pressed and
then cold isostatically pressed18,33; these authors indicated
that if the powder was not milled to break down aggre-
gates it did not sinter above 80%TD. In this work, we
use commercially available powders more than one
order of magnitude larger, with more impurities and with-
out expensive grinding or compaction stages, we reach
80%TD after sintering at 2100°C. This already could rep-
resent a significant decrease of the production cost of TiB2
components. This approach could also be adopted to
 Tallon and Franks
Table 2 Green densities of samples prepared with 50% fine
and 50% coarse powders and different amounts of
TiC as sintering aid
wt-% TiC added to the Relative green density/% (respect to
powder mixture theoretical density of TiB2)
0% 71.8
1% TiC 70.1
3% TiC 70.0
5% TiC 70.1
produce composites and coatings of TiB2. In order to con-
firm the better suitability of the colloidal processing
approach than the conventional dry pressing of powders,
some pellets were produced by dry pressing of the powder
using 75, 90 and 100% of fine powder in the powder
mixture, and sintered at 2000°C (Fig. 6). For all the
percentages, the colloidal processing samples produced
better results than dry pressing, confirming that colloidal
processing is the right approach for producing TiB2. The
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colloidal approach produces higher green densities than
the dry pressed pellets.20 Since only necking is occurring
without significant densification, the density of the sin-
tered bodies does not increase much more than the
green body.
Temperatures up to 2100°C have been explored in this
work. It has been seen that the increase from 2000 to
2100°C produced a significant improvement on the densi-
fication behaviour, mainly in terms of necking and grain
growth, although the sintered density value is only 80%.
It is expected that a further increase of sintering tempera-
ture up to 2200°C may trigger a significant densification
(we observed a similar situation for other borides and car-
bides above certain value of temperature, materials have
gone from 75 to 80% density to above 90%).20 However,
due to the limitations of our furnace (maximum operative
temperature) this option will not be directly explored.
Despite the potential improvement in terms of proces-
sability, the sintered densities achieved so far in this
work remain around 80%. One of the main reasons for
this problem is that at temperatures above 1800°C, the
presence of oxygen contamination in the powder pro-
motes pore and grain coarsening by increasing the surface
diffusivity, as Baik and Becher reported,33 and this coar-
sening determines the maximum density achievable.
5 SEM images of the microstructure of sample produced from 50% fine powder and 50% coarse powder sintered at 2000°C cor-
responding at different height of the cross-sectioned sample. (left image: top of the sample; right image: bottom of the
sample)
Exploring inexpensive processing routes to prepare dense TiB 2 components
6 Densities of samples sintered at 2000°C for 1 h produced
from different percentage of fine and coarse powders
using colloidal processing and dry pressing
These authors recommended keeping the oxygen concen-
tration below 0.5 wt-%. The amount of oxygen in our
powder is reportedly to be a maximum of 2.5 wt-% (man-
ufacturer data), which could explain some the coarsening
we saw in the microstructures.
However, it is necessary to reach temperatures above
2000°C to attempt pressureless densification of this
material,16 and above that temperature, some preferential
growth was observed and potentially could affect the
mechanical performance of the component.16,30,31,34
This is why the bulk of work about TiB2 has focused in
the use of hot-pressing, hot-isostatic pressing and the
use of large concentration of sintering aids to promote
densification below 2000°C.
The next stage of this work contemplated the addition
of titanium carbide (TiC) as sintering aids to try to
improve the value of 80% relative density using the ratio
50/50 which produced the better packing and better sin-
tering results so far.
TiC as sintering aid
The sintering aid explored in this work was titanium car-
bide (TiC), based on previous work reported in the litera-
ture.16,35 The idea behind this choice was that this powder
could form C solid solutions in the TiB2 crystal structure,
thus increasing the vacancies and potentially increasing
the solid state diffusion rate within the material. The
solid solution limit for TiC in TiB2 has been reported to
be around 2.7–3.2 mol-%36,37 (equivalent to 2.3–2.8 wt-
%). However, some researchers have reported the use of
Advances in Applied Ceramics 2016 5
 Tallon and Franks Exploring inexpensive processing routes to prepare dense TiB 2 components
7 Sintered densities of samples prepared with 50% fine and
50% coarse powders and different amounts of TiC as sin-
tering aid sintered at different temperatures and times
up to 15% TiC, which led to 99% density using hot-press-
ing.16 Although this reported 15% is above the solubility
value of TiC in TiB2, this value is still well below the
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molar fraction corresponding to the eutectic composition
of TiB2–TiC phase diagrams, which is around 40 mol-%
TiC36,37 (equivalent to 35 wt-% approx.). The range of
concentrations used in this work ranged from1 to 5 wt-
%, which are much closer to the solubility limit of TiC
in TiB2, to keep the TiB2 as pure as possible to not affect
its conductivity.
8 Microstructure of samples prepared with 50% fine and 50% coarse powder and different per cent of TiC sintered at 2100°C for
1h
6 Advances in Applied Ceramics 2016
The use of transition metal11,38 (Cr and Fe), disili-
cides39 (TiSi2 and MoSi2), nitrides17,30,34 (TiN, AlN and
Si3N4) and carbides34,39,40 (B4C and SiC) have been
reported to improve the densification of TiB2. For
example, Popov et al. 41 prepared dense TiB2 components
(TiB2–Al2O3) via reactive hot-pressing using additions of
B4C and Al. However, the addition of these compounds
occurs in quite large percentages of the overall material
(up to 25 wt-%), which could have a significant influence
on the overall properties of the final material. There is not
much information available about how these compounds
may affect the conductivity or wettability of TiB2 or its
chemical resistance to molten salts and therefore its suit-
ability for cathode applications. We consider that TiC
has very similar properties to TiB2 in terms of mechanical
strength and toughness and melting point, so it will not
compromise the service conditions of this material.
The green densities of the samples prepared with 50%
fine and 50% coarse powder as a function of the amount
of sintering aid are shown in Table 2. The addition of up
to 5 wt-% of TiC to the powder mixture did not affect the
stability of the suspension and the green densities
remained close to 70% in all cases, indicating very close
packing of all the different particles in the green body.
The sintered results are summarised in Fig. 7. In gen-
eral, the sintered density increased with the sintering
temperature/time as expected. The highest sintered den-
sity reached was 80.8% for 1% of TiC sintered at 2100°
C/1 h. However, there was not a big change with respect
 Tallon and Franks Exploring inexpensive processing routes to prepare dense TiB 2 components

9 Microstructure of samples prepared with 50% fine and 50% coarse powder and 1% of TiC sintered at 2000°C for 1 and 2 h
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10 Microstructures of samples prepared with 50% fine and 50% coarse powder and 1% of TiC sintered at 2000°C for 1 h at differ-
ent height of the cross-sectioned sample (left image: top of the sample; right image: bottom of the sample)

to the pure TiB2. Increasing the percentage of sintering Conclusions

aids in the amounts chosen for this study does not seem
to help with the densification process, and in any case,
the sintered densities were lower. The samples with 3
and 5% TiC did not change their density value with respect
to the green density measurement, even after sintering at
2100°C. The microstructures of the samples sintered at
2100°C (Fig. 8) are in good agreement with the sintered
density values registered. The sample with 1% TiC shows
more densification and grain growth than the other
samples, as expected from the 80.8% sintered value. The
sample with 3% TiC which produced the lowest density
at this temperature only present necking between the par-
ticle and more porosity when compared with other
samples. We have no explanation for this unexpected result.
The effect of sintering time was seen in the microstruc-
ture, as depicted in Fig. 9. Increasing the sintering time
for the samples with 1% TiC produced an overall
improvement of the necking of the particle and slight
grain growth at 2000°C. Despite the difference in par-
ticle size and the addition of a third type of powder
(TiC), no segregation of particles was observed when
the top and bottom sections of the samples were exam-
ined, as demonstrated in Fig. 10. The samples were ana-
lysed by EDS. No significant increase in the oxygen
content was observed with respect to the initial powder.
No indication of additional phases apart from TiB2 and
TiC were observed.
Titanium diboride materials have been produced using a
wet colloidal processing approach combined with pres-
sureless sintering. The approach has good potential to
reduce the manufacturing cost compared to hot-pressing.
Owing to the elevated cost of the fine powders, the possi-
bility of mixing powders with different particle sizes (fine
and coarse powder) has been explored. The outcome of
this study is very promising, since using two different par-
ticle sizes improved the particle packing of the green
material resulting in final sintered densities around 80%.
This result was achieved using 50% of fine powder and
50% coarse powder, significantly reducing the amount
of ‘expensive’ powder required. However, the sintered
materials only showed densities around 80% at 2100°C,
even with the addition of TiC as sintering aid, and these
results are still well below the density required for closed
porosity (≈92%). The approach described in this paper
has the potential to open new avenues for the processing
of these materials, since it has been demonstrated that
the high green density particle packing achieved with a
simple colloidal approach is an excellent (and inexpen-
sive) starting point for the pressureless sintering of these
materials in comparison with uniaxial hot-pressing. The
addition of sintered aids and/or carbon to react with the
oxygen impurities together with the use of sintering
temperatures around 2300°C could lead to closed

Advances in Applied Ceramics 2016 7

 Tallon and Franks Exploring inexpensive processing routes to prepare dense TiB 2 components
porosity-high density monoliths of TiB2 for use in cathode
applications. This approach could also be adopted to pro-
duce composites and coatings of TiB2.
Acknowledgements
The authors of this report acknowledge the work of the stu-
dents Sarah Castelino, Allan Phu, Nicholas Chamberlain
and Dennis Kurniawan during their Research Project sub-
ject. We thank Interdisciplinary Seed 2013 Funding from
the University of Melbourne for the funding provided to
work on this project. We specially thank Lynne Davies of
Rio Tinto for providing the coarse TiB2 powder for this
study. We thank Mr Samuel Pinches and Mr Roger Curtain
for their help with the SEM images of the raw powder.
Finally, we acknowledge Professor Robin Batterham for
his continuous advice and help with this project and Pro-
fessor Ludwig Gauckler for the very useful discussions
about the framework and applications for this project.
Downloaded by [University of Sussex Library] at 23:00 05 May 2016
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