MICROSTRUCTURE AND PHASE SELECTION IN DIRECTIONAL SOLIDIFICATION OF Co-Sb ALLOY

  • SUN Hongyuan ,
  • LI Shuangming ,
  • FENG Songke ,
  • FU Hengzhi
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  • State Key Laboratory of Solidification Processing, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an 710072

Received date: 2012-12-18

  Revised date: 2013-03-25

  Online published: 2013-06-11

Abstract

The compound CoSb3 is one kind of thermoelectric material that has been received more attention due to its potential application in green refrigeration and power generation. The general way to prepare CoSb3 material is sintering and the solidification behavior of CoSb3 compound is rarely reported, since this compound is obtained through the peritectic reaction, and there exists phase competitive growth in solidification process. In this work, Bridgman directional solidification and laser rapid solidification experiments on Co-93.0%Sb (mass fraction) alloy were carried out. XRD, SEM and EDS were employed to determine the solidified phases and characterize the microstructure. The results showed that for Bridgman directional solidification, the solidification microstructure of Co-93.0%Sb alloy contained only the CoSb3 and Sb phases at the solidification rates of 2 and 5 μm/s, whereas at the solidification rates of 20, 50, 100 and 500 μm/s, the microstructure contained CoSb3, CoSb2 and Sb phases. Furthermore, the volume fraction of CoSb3 phase decreased with increasing solidification rate. For laser rapid solidification, the solidification microstructure consisted of CoSb3, CoSb2 and Sb phases at the scanning rate of 5 mm/s. As the scanning rate ranging from 10 to 50 mm/s, the microstructure is composed of only CoSb3 and Sb phases. The critical rate of peritectic phaseCoSb3 instead of primary CoSb2 solidified directly from the melt was theoretically predicted to 7.61 mm/s, agreeing well with the experiment result. In addition, the formation mechanisms of peritectic phase CoSb3 at Bridgeman directional solidification and laser rapid solidification were analysed. The formation of peritectic phase at low solidification rates was due to the local solidification time available for the peritectic reaction, and at high solidification rates higher than 10 mm/s the peritectic phase CoSb3 was obtained directly from the melt. Therefore to obtain a large volume fraction of peritectic phase CoSb3,  a low solidification rate is recommended.

Cite this article

SUN Hongyuan , LI Shuangming , FENG Songke , FU Hengzhi . MICROSTRUCTURE AND PHASE SELECTION IN DIRECTIONAL SOLIDIFICATION OF Co-Sb ALLOY[J]. Acta Metall Sin, 2013 , 49(6) : 682 -688 . DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1037.2012.00735

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