Nano β-SiAlON Powder Synthesized by Carbothermal Reduction and Nitridation of Ultrafine Al2O3-SiO2 Mixture Employing Sol-Gel Techniques

This paper reports carbothermal preparation of nano -sialon powders via a sol-gel route. At first, homogeneous precursor powders with an atomic ratio of Si:Al=1:1 were prepared via an aqueous process. After a carbothermal reduction-nitridation (CRN) process, nano powders of -sialon were obtained. The characteristics of this product were determined by XRD, TEM and FT-IR. The reaction route in this CRN process is also discussed after phase analysis by XRD.