A study on the effective parameters of nanocrystalline Fe3Mo3C powder formation, synthesized by mechanical alloying process

A nanocrystalline Fe3Mo3C powder was synthesized through mechanical alloying process. The starting materials with the molar ratio of 3Fe:3Mo:1C were milled in a planetary ball mill. In order to investigate the effect of ball to powder weight ratio on the morphology and micro-structural behavior of powder during mechanical alloying process, two different ball to powder weight ratios (10:1 and 20:1) were chosen. X-ray diffraction patterns show that increasing ball to powder weight ratio promotes the Fe3Mo3C formation in lower milling time. The specimen was milled for 50 h with BPR 20:1, and annealed under Argon atmosphere at 1100 deg. C, monophase Fe3Mo3C was obtained. The mean crystalline size of the resulted powder was about 61 nm. To study the morphology evolution and effect of ball to powder weight ratio on it, during different stages of mechanical alloying, scanning electron microscope was used. The results of tap density also illustrate the steps of mechanical alloying process.