Fabrication of Fe-based bulk metallic glasses from low-purity industrial raw materials

• Fe-based metallic glasses were prepared by industrial-purity Fe–B alloys and sponge titanium.
• The appropriate addition of Ti could enhance glass forming ability of Fe–B–Y–Nb alloy system.
• The newly developed BMGs shows good soft magnetic property and moderately mechanical property.

Bulk metallic glasses with nominal compositions of (Fe71.2B24Y4.8)96Nb4−xTix (x = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4) were prepared with industrial-purity Fe–B alloys and sponge titanium. Partially replacing Nb with Ti (sponge titanium) substantially increased the thermal stability and glass forming ability of the alloys. The best glass former was a rod of (Fe71.2B24Y4.8)96Nb2Ti2, which had a critical diameter of 6 mm and a supercooled liquid region (ΔTx) of ≈103 K, both among the best values in Fe-based bulk metallic glasses. We also investigated the magnetic and mechanical properties of the (Fe71.2B24Y4.8)96Nb2Ti2 BMG, which exhibited high saturation magnetization and compressive fracture strength of ≈121 emu/g and 3.4 GPa, respectively. These results demonstrate that the present Fe-based bulk metallic glasses might be a potential candidate for commercial applications with low cost and good performance.