Investigation of the Thermal Stability of High Energy Ball Milled SiC Nanoparticles Using Thermogravimetric and Differential Thermal Analysis

Abstract

In this paper, an attempt has been made to analyze the thermal stability of silicon carbide (SiC) particles using thermogravimetric and differential thermal analysis (TGA/DTA). The SiC particles were made by using a high-energy ball milling (HEBM) process to break down micro-sized particles into nano-sized ones. The HEBM was conducted over 60 h, with samples collected at intervals of 15, 30, 45, and 60 h. The samples were further characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to examine changes in crystallinity and particle morphology. XRD analysis revealed shifts in peak positions, indicating structural changes induced by the milling process. SEM and TEM analyses showed a more homogeneous structure in the milled samples. TGA/DTA analysis demonstrated that nanosized SiC particles exhibited reduced thermal stability. Milling for a longer time caused mass loss to increase, ranging from 2% to 4.24%, at temperatures from 30 °C to 1000 °C and a heating rate of 20 °C/min in a nitrogen atmosphere. These findings show that nanosized SiC particles could be useful in high-temperature situations, especially in fields that need materials that are very stable at high temperatures.