Effect of Al₂O₃ addition on the sintering behavior of nano tungsten powder

A two-step reduction method was used to synthesize nano tungsten powder via carbothermic pre-reduction of tungsten oxide, followed by a deep hydrogen reduction. In this process, carbon black first reduced most of the oxygen in tungsten trioxide, while the residual oxygen was removed by hydrogen reduction. The tungsten powder prepared by the two-step reduction method had a spherical shape with an average grain size of 90 nm. Simultaneously, tungsten powders doped with 1% and 2% alumina (mass fraction) were similarly prepared to study the effect of alumina on its sintering behavior. Analysis of fracture morphologies and average grain size of sintered samples showed that alumina significantly inhibited grain growth at the final sintering stage and grain size decreased at the same sintering temperature with an increase in the alumina content. At 1600 ℃, the average grain size of sintered sample of pure tungsten was approximately 2.75 μm, but it was about 1.5 μm for the sintered samples doped with 1% and 2% alumina. This finding could be based on the fact that tungsten grain growth in the final stage of sintering can be effectively inhibited by alumina particles. The sintered pure tungsten powder and alumina doped tungsten powders had different hardness variation levels with temperature increase. The hardness of the sintered sample doped with alumina has always increased with temperature increases, reaching a maximum value above 800 HV. As for the sintered sample of pure tungsten, the hardness first increased and then decreased with temperature increase, reached its maximum value of 473.6 HV at 1400 °C that was caused by the rapid growth of grain size of tungsten at higher temperatures. At a sintering temperature of 1600 ℃, the relative density of the pure tungsten powder was 98.52%, while that of the tungsten powder doped with 1% and 2% alumina were 95.43% and 93.5%, respectively.