Issue

Vol. 12 (2020)

A Review on Binderless Tungsten Carbide: Development and Application

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40820-019-0346-1
Jialin Sun
State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, People’s Republic of China
Jun Zhao
Key Laboratory of High Efficiency and Clean Mechanical Manufacture of MOE, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan 250061, People’s Republic of China
Zhifu Huang
State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, People’s Republic of China
Ke Yan
Key Laboratory of Education Ministry for Modern Design and Rotor‑Bearing System, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, People’s Republic of China
Xuehui Shen
School of Mechanical and Automotive Engineering, Qilu University of Technology, Jinan 250353, People’s Republic of China
Jiandong Xing
State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, People’s Republic of China
Yimin Gao
State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, People’s Republic of China
Yongxin Jian
State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, People’s Republic of China
Hejie Yang
State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, People’s Republic of China
Bo Li
State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, People’s Republic of China

Corresponding Author: Ke Yan

yanke@mail.xjtu.edu.cn

Nano-Micro Letters, Vol. 12 (2020), Article Number: 13

Abstract

WC-Co alloys have enjoyed great practical significance owing to their excellent properties during the past decades. Despite the advantages, however, recently there have been concerns about the challenges associated with the use of Co, i.e. price instability, toxicity and properties degeneration, which necessitates the fabrication of binderless tungsten carbide (BTC). On the other hand, BTC or BTC composites, none of them, to date has been commercialized and produced on an industrial scale, but only used to a limited extent for specialized applications, such as mechanical seals undergoing high burthen as well as high temperature electrical contacts. There are two challenges in developing BTC: fully densifying the sintered body together with achieving a high toughness. Thus, this review applies towards comprehensively summarize the current knowledge of sintering behavior, microstructure, and mechanical properties of BTC, highlighting the densification improving strategies as well as toughening methods, so as to provide reference for those who would like to enhance the performance of BTC with better reliability advancing them to further wide applications and prepare the material in a way that is environment friendly, harmless to human health and low in production cost. This paper shows that the fabrication of highly dense and high-performance BTC is economically and technically feasible. The properties of BTC can be tailored by judiciously selecting the chemical composition coupled with taking into careful account the effects of processing techniques and parameters.


Highlights:


1 Establish processing-composition-microstructure-property relationships governing binderless tungsten carbide (BTC).
2 Highlight the densification improving strategies and toughening methods for BTC.
3 Provide key challenges as well as the outlook for superior peformance associated with BTC.

Keywords

Binderless tungsten carbide Sintering Densification Toughening Mechanical properties
Sun, Jialin, Jun Zhao, Zhifu Huang, Ke Yan, Xuehui Shen, Jiandong Xing, Yimin Gao, Yongxin Jian, Hejie Yang, and Bo Li. 2019. “A Review on Binderless Tungsten Carbide: Development and Application”. Nano-Micro Letters 12 (December):13. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40820-019-0346-1.
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