Microstructural Transitions during Powder Metallurgical Processing of Solute Stabilized Nanostructured Tungsten Alloys

Exploiting grain boundary engineering in the design of alloys for extreme environments provides a promising pathway for enhancing performance relative to coarse-grained counterparts. Due to its attractive properties as a plasma facing material for fusion devices, tungsten presents an opportunity to exploit this approach in addressing the significant materials challenges imposed by the fusion environment. Here, we employ a ternary alloy design approach for stabilizing W against recrystallization and grain growth while simultaneously enhancing its manufacturability through powder metallurgical processing. Mechanical alloying and grain refinement in W-10 at.% Ti-(10,20) at.% Cr alloys are accomplished through high-energy ball milling with transitions in the microstructure mapped as a function of milling time. We demonstrate the multi-modal nature of the resulting nanocrystalline grain structure and its stability up to 1300 °C with the coarser grain size population correlated to transitions in crystallographic texture that result from the preferred slip systems in BCC W. Field-assisted sintering is employed to consolidate the alloy powders into bulk samples, which, due to the deliberately designed compositional features, are shown to retain ultrafine grain structures despite the presence of minor carbides formed during sintering due to carbon impurities in the ball-milled powders

Microstructural Transitions during Powder Metallurgical Processing of Solute Stabilized Nanostructured Tungsten Alloys

Exploiting grain boundary engineering in the design of alloys for extreme environments provides a promising pathway for enhancing performance relative to coarse-grained counterparts. Due to its attractive properties as a plasma facing material for fusion devices, tungsten presents an opportunity to exploit this approach in addressing the significant materials challenges imposed by the fusion environment. Here, we employ a ternary alloy design approach for stabilizing W against recrystallization and grain growth while simultaneously enhancing its manufacturability through powder metallurgical processing. Mechanical alloying and grain refinement in W-10 at.% Ti-(10,20) at.% Cr alloys are accomplished through high-energy ball milling with transitions in the microstructure mapped as a function of milling time. We demonstrate the multi-modal nature of the resulting nanocrystalline grain structure and its stability up to 1300 °C with the coarser grain size population correlated to transitions in crystallographic texture that result from the preferred slip systems in BCC W. Field-assisted sintering is employed to consolidate the alloy powders into bulk samples, which, due to the deliberately designed compositional features, are shown to retain ultrafine grain structures despite the presence of minor carbides formed during sintering due to carbon impurities in the ball-milled powders

Photocatalytic Degradation of Crystal Violet (CV) Dye over Metal Oxide (MO_x) Catalysts

Crystal violet (CV) is an organic chloride salt and a triphenylmethane dye commonly used in the textile processing industry, also being used as a disinfectant and a biomedical stain. Although CV is widely used, it is carcinogenic to humans and is retained by industrial-produced effluent for an extended period. The different types of metal oxide (MOx) have impressive photocatalytic properties, allowing them to be utilized for pollutant degradation. The role of the photocatalyst is to facilitate oxidation and reduction processes by trapping light energy. In this study, we investigated different types of metal oxides, such as titanium dioxide (TiO2), zinc oxide (ZnO), zirconium dioxide (ZrO2), iron (III) oxide (Fe2O3), copper (II) oxide (CuO), copper (I) oxide (Cu2O), and niobium pentoxide (Nb2O5) for the CV decomposition reaction at ambient conditions. For characterization, BET and Raman spectroscopy were applied, providing findings showing that the surface area of the anatase TiO2 and ZnO were 5 m2/g and 12.1 m2/g, respectively. The activity tests over TiO2 and ZnO catalysts revealed that up to ~98% of the dye could be decomposed under UV irradiation in x, the band gap–water splitting relationship, and the recombination rate of electron holes