A novel approach for extracting and characterizing interfacial reaction products in Al-SiCp composites

Abstract

The reclamation process by salt flux addition has been employed to extract the interfacial reaction products as well as SiCp from Al-SiCp composites. It has been observed that this process enables the use of X-ray diffraction (XRD) to identify the interfacial reaction product Al4C3 in Al-SiCp composites even in the early stages of reaction. Further, it allows an easy and more accurate quantification of the interfacial reaction in Al-SiCp composites using spectroscopic techniques such as optical emission spectroscopy (OES).