Nitriding study of titanium silicide intermetallics obtained by mechanical alloying

Titanium and silicon powder blends were ball-milled under an inert atmosphere and subsequently annealed in a nitrogen atmosphere. Ti62.5Si37.5, Ti55.6Si44.4, and Ti50Si50 mixtures suffered a mechanically induced self-propagating reaction during milling. The products of the combustion were Ti5Si3 for the Ti62.5Si37.5 mixture and a combination of intermetallic phases for the Ti55.6Si44.4 and Ti50Si50 mixtures. The Ti33.3Si66.7 blend did not show an MSR process, but prolonged milling allowed the formation of a mixture of stable C54–TiSi2 and metastable C49–TiSi2 by a diffusion reaction. The nitriding study showed a different behaviour for C54–TiSi2 and Ti5Si3. C54–TiSi2 nitriding took place in a two-step process: the first corresponded to the formation of TiN and Si and the second to the silicon nitriding leading to the formation of α- and β-Si3N4. However, silicon and titanium nitriding primarily occurred simultaneously during the annealing of Ti5Si3, and the final product was a mixture of TiN and α-Si3N4.