Revealing dehydrogenation effect and resultant densification mechanism during pressureless sintering of TiH2 powder

The use of TiH2 powder as a sintering precursor can produce nearly full-density titanium and titanium alloys with good mechanical properties. Unfortunately, there is a lack of research on the effect of lattice defects generated during the dehydrogenation of TiH2 powder, and the underlying sintering diffusion mechanism and activation energy have yet to be determined. In this work, we report a two-step sintering strategy to reveal the dehydrogenation effect and resultant densification mechanism during the pressureless sintering of a TiH2 powder precursor. The results show that, compared with hydrogenated-dehydrogenated (HDH) Ti powder, TiH2 powder, an intermediate of HDH-Ti powder, exhibited a higher instantaneous densification rate, greater onset relative density, rapid grain growth, and thus a smaller grain size. It also showed a grain boundary diffusion mechanism below 91% relative density and half the sintering activation energy in the intermediate sintering stage. Fundamentally, this was attributed to lattice defects generated during the dehydrogenation of TiH2 powder, which was confirmed by the greater relative density of a sintered TiH2 compact due to the two-step sintering strategy designed herein. Interestingly, the sintered sample obtained from the TiH2 powder precursor has a satisfying combination of strength and ductility that is far superior to other bulk Ti materials, especially sintered bulk Ti obtained from HDH-Ti powder. The results obtained in this paper provide theoretical guidance for using pressureless sintering to produce nearly full-density Ti and Ti alloys with good mechanical properties for structural applications. •TiH2 exhibits higher densification behavior before rapid grain growth.•Grain boundary diffusion controls TiH2 and HDH-Ti compacts in intermediate stage.•Half of sintering activation energy of TiH2 than that of HDH-Ti powder.•Two-step sintering strategy reveal dehydrogenation effects on densification.•Sample from TiH2 powder present 659 MPa tensile strength and 20.8% ductility.