Effect of Al on the synthesis of Ti3SiC2 by reactively sintering Ti–SiC–C powder mixtures

Powder mixtures of 3Ti/SiC/C/xAl with different Al contents (x = 0–0.2) were reactively sintered by pulse discharge sintering (PDS) process, to reveal the effect of Al addition on the bulk Ti3SiC2 synthesis. It was found that small amount of Al addition enabled single-phase Ti3SiC2 synthesis and the optimal sintering temperature for the Ti3SiC2 synthesis is greatly decreased by the Al addition. Almost single-phase bulk Ti3SiC2 material can be synthesized from 3Ti/SiC/C/0.15Al and 3Ti/SiC/C/0.20Al powder mixtures at temperature as low as 1200 °C for 15 min by PDS. The optimal temperature range for the Ti3SiC2 formation is enlarged obviously by Al addition.