Nitridation behaviour of ZrO2 added silicon powder with different ZrO2 particle sizes

Effect of zirconia particle size on the nitridation behavior of silicon powder was studied in order to assess the influence of the zirconia particle size on the nitridation of silicon powder. Thermo-gravimetric analysis revealed that for samples held at higher temperatures the addition of zirconia powder resulted in a reduction of the temperature for the onset of nitridation of the silicon powder, and the degree of silicon to silicon nitride conversion at a given temperature was higher for samples nitrided with finer particle size of zirconia. For lower temperature, the degree of nitridation was studied as a function of holding time and samples with finer additions showed a much higher initial nitridation rate than those with coarser additions.