A method of making boride and vitreous compound by powder metallurgy

A procedure of making borides and vitreous compounds has been developed through the reaction between boron and a chemical reductor. Several chemical reducing elements were used, like aluminum, magnesium, coke, etc. As raw material for boron, different compounds were used: amorphous boron, boric acid and boron oxide. The incorporation of the reducing elements into the boron was achieved by using powder technology. The problem of the boron in sintering process is the formation of a surface layer of oxide (over 723 K), which prevents the normal sintering process. The solutions given in this project are based on the incorporation of reducing elements such as aluminum, magnesium, coke, etc. into the lattice of the boron so that the layer of oxide can be avoided in the first stage of the sintering. The manufacturing method was using crucibles specially designed for the controlled reactive sintering (another version of metallothermic techniques) with thermal shock conditions. The obtained sintered material is a vitreous boron–aluminum, free of oxide joining in its formulation amorphous boron mixed with aluminum .