Effect of carbon source on in-situ carbothermic reduction fabricating steel-bonded cemented carbide GT35 from ilmenite

In the present study, steel-bonded cemented carbide GT35 has been fabricated from natural ilmenite by in-situ carbothermic reduction and vacuum pressureless sintering. The effect of different carbon source on the mechanical properties and microstructure of GT35 composite was studied. The quality of the composite synthesized from natural graphite is higher than those from other carbon source. Some good results were obtained from experiments: the density is about 6.2g/cm(3), and the bending strength is 1390MPa, which higher than that of other samples. The structures and ingredient of different carbon source were analyzed to elucidate their different performance in the reactions.