Exfoliation-assisted dispersion of short carbon fibers in silicon carbide powder

•The exfoliation of CF tows prior to ball milling resulted in an excellent dispersion in SiC powder.•This methodology helped in the dispersion of CFs in SiC powder without any dispersing agent.•The dispersion time of CFs in SiC powder was found to reduce enormously due to exfoliation.•The reduced time resulted in fine dispersion without damaging CFs.•The fine dispersion of CFs in SiC powder up to 50 vol% was achieved.

This study brings out the findings of milling and dispersion of carbon fibers (CFs) and silicon carbide (SiC) powder in a wide range of CF to SiC ratios (10:90, 20:80, 30:70, and 50:50 vol%). The composite powders were prepared by chopping and exfoliation of CFs, and ball milling of CFs and SiC powder in isopropyl alcohol. The exfoliation of CF tows resulted in an excellent dispersion of CFs in SiC powder without any dispersing agent for all CF loadings. However, the distribution of CFs in SiC for the samples with 10 and 20 vol% of CFs was found extremely uniform compared to those with 30 and 50 vol% of CF loadings. Furthermore, the exfoliation of CF tows yielded excellent dispersion and distribution of CFs in SiC without damaging the surface of CFs. The results further showed that the average particle size (APS) of composite powders increased with CFs loading.

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