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.