Ductility of Mo–12Si–8.5B alloys doped with lanthanum oxide by the liquid–liquid doping method

• Alloys doping lanthanum oxide by L–L doped method were prepared by hot pressing.
• The compression strength of alloys are superior.
• The fracture toughness of alloys is improved by L–L doped method.

Mo–12Si–8.5B (Mo–Si–B) alloys doped with different mass fractions (0.3 wt%, 0.6 wt%, and 0.9 wt%) of lanthanum oxide (La2O3) were prepared by liquid–liquid (L–L) doping, mechanical alloying and hot pressing sintering techniques. The observation of the microstructures of the Mo–Si–B alloys reveals that the grain sizes of the alloys were refined with the increase in La2O3 doping. The fracture toughness values of the alloys of over 10 MPa m1/2 reveal that the addition of La2O3 via the L–L doping method can obviously improve the alloy fracture toughness compared to the alloys doped with La2O3 via the solid–solid (S–S) doping method. In addition, compression tests indicate that the compression strength of the alloys was improved compared to Mo–12Si–8.5B alloys.