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Title: Synthesis of nanoscale magnesium diboride powder

Journal Article · · IOP Conference Series. Materials Science and Engineering
 [1];  [2]
  1. Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA (United States)
  2. Specialty Materials Inc., Lowell, MA (United States)

A procedure has been developed for the preparation of small grained magnesium diboride (MgB2) powder by reacting nanometer size boron powder in a magnesium vapor. Plasma synthesized boron powder that had particle sizes ranging from 20 to 300nm was mixed with millimeter size chunks of Mg by rolling stoichiometric amounts of the powders in a sealed cylindrical container under nitrogen gas. This mixture then was placed in a niobium reaction vessel, evacuated, and sealed by e-beam welding. The vessel was typically heated to approximately 830°C for several hours. The resulting MgB2 particles have a grain size in the 200 nm to 800 nm range. Agglomerates of loosely bound particles could be broken up by light grinding in a mortar and pestle. At 830°C, many particles are composed of several grains grown together so that the average particle size is about twice the average grain size. Furthermore, experiments were conducted primarily with undoped boron powder, but carbon-doped boron powder showed very similar results.

Research Organization:
Ames Lab., Ames, IA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-07CH11358
OSTI ID:
1234524
Report Number(s):
IS-J-8745
Journal Information:
IOP Conference Series. Materials Science and Engineering, Vol. 102; ISSN 1757-8981
Publisher:
IOP PublishingCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (3)

Plasma synthesized doped B powders for MgB2 superconductors journal July 2005
Strongly linked current flow in polycrystalline forms of the superconductor MgB2 journal March 2001
Synthesis and optimization of Mg(B1−xCx)2 wire segments journal August 2005

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