Preparation of titanium nitride ultrafine powders by sol–gel and microwave carbothermal reduction nitridation methods

Titanium nitride ultrafine powders were prepared from tetrabutyl titanate and sucrose by sol–gel and microwave carbothermal reduction methods. The influences of reaction temperature, molar ratio of Ti to C, addition of crystal seeds and amount of NH4F on the synthesis of titanium nitride were studied. The results show that excess amount of carbon, addition of crystal seeds and NH4F plays a positive effect on the preparation of TiN at low temperature. The inceptive formation temperature of TiN ultrafine powders is about 800 °C, and pure TiN can be prepared at 1000 °C. Field emission-scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) was used to get the micrograph of the TiN powder, it shows that the size of the powders synthesized at 1000 °C is about 0.1–0.5 μm.