Thermal plasma synthesis of SiC

Abstract

Synthesis of silicon carbide has been carried out using thermal plasma processing technique using SiO2 as the solid feed and CH4 as the gaseous reducing agent. Thermochemical calculations have been performed varying the molar ratio of silicon dioxide and methane to determine the feasibility of the reaction. Experiments using a molar ratio of SiO2:CH4 equal to 1:2 produced maximum yield of SiC of about 65 mol % at a solid feed rate of 5 g/min. Mostly spherical morphology with some nanorods has been observed. The presence of Si had been observed and was quantified using XRD, HRTEM, Raman spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron microscopy (XPS). Si acts as a nucleating agent for SiC nanorods to grow. © 2013 Shanghai University and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.