Preparation of Fe-1%C nanocrystalline by mechanical milling and its thermal stability

The particles of Fe-1%C (mole fraction) alloy with the single phase solid solution nanocrystalline were produced by mechanical milling. The influences of milling time on the particles morphologies and the grain size were investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffractometry (XRD). Applying Scherrer formula, the average grain size, furthermore, the grain size evolution with the milling time, was obtained. The results show that the single phase solid solution has already been achieved after 10 h milling. Both the particles morphologies and the grain size become stable after milling over 85 h, and the final grain size is about 8 nm. The Fe-C nanocrystallines have the tendency of growing up resulting in the large amount of grain boundaries and micro-strain among them. The thermal stability of Fe-C nanocrystalline at different temperatures was investigated by isothermal differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) technology. Combining with the thermodynamics and kinetics of grain growth, the active energy of grain boundary diffusion and the stable grain size were calculated, and the stable mechanism of Fe-C nanocrystalline was discussed.