@article{XING2017, 
author = {Xinming XING and Junhong CHEN and Guoping BEI and Bin LI and Kuo-Chih CHOU and Xinmei HOU},
title = {Synthesis of Al4SiC4 powders via carbothermic reduction: Reaction and grain growth mechanisms},
year = {2017},
journal = {Journal of Advanced Ceramics},
volume = {6},
number = {4},
pages = {351-359},
keywords = {growth mechanism, Al4SiC4, carbothermic reduction, hexagonal plate-like},
url = {https://www.sciopen.com/article/10.1007/s40145-017-0247-z},
doi = {10.1007/s40145-017-0247-z},
abstract = {Highly pure Al4SiC4 powders were prepared by carbothermic reduction at 2173 K using Al2O3, SiO2, and graphite as raw materials. The obtained Al4SiC4 powders owned hexagonal plate-like grains with a diameter of about 200-300 μm and a thickness of about 2-6 μm. Based on the experimental results, the reaction of Al4SiC4 formation and grain evolution mechanisms were determined from thermodynamic and first-principles calculations. The results indicated that the synthesis of Al4SiC4 by the carbothermic reduction consisted of two parts, i.e., solid-solid reactions initially followed by complex gas-solid and gas-gas reactions. The grain growth mechanism of Al4SiC4 featured a two-dimensional nucleation and growth mechanism. The gas phases formed during the sintering process favored the preferential grain growth of (0010) and  (11¯0) planes resulting in formation of hexagonal plate-like Al4SiC4 grains.}
}