COATING PARTICLES BY CHEMICAL VAPOR-DEPOSITION IN FLUIDIZED-BED REACTORS

A technique to deposit a thin, adherent, uniformly dispersed coating onto the individual particles in a batch of granular or powdered material is described. We have been able to apply successfully a number of coatings to a variety of particulate materials using a fluidized-bed chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technique. By means of this technique we used tri-isobutylaluminum to apply adherent coatings of aluminum on powdered mica and powdered nickel. The powdered mica was also coated with titanium in a fluidized bed reactor in which titanium precursors were generated in situ by the reaction between HCl and metallic titanium. Post treatment of the titanium coated mica with ammonia produced agglomerates coated with TiN. These systems demonstrate the potential utility of the fluidized bed reactor for depositing a variety of coatings onto metallic and non-metallic dispersed materials. Preparation of such coated powders is likely to be valuable in a variety of industrial applications, such as the manufacture of composite structures.