Characteristics of particle size distribution in early stage of deoxidation

The spread of the size distributions obtained by deoxidizing an Fe-10mass%Ni alloy with Zr, Mg, Al, Ca and Si/Mn has been discussed with particular emphasis on the particle size distribution soon after the nucleation of deoxidation product. The geometric standard deviation in size distribution was found to be related to the interfacial energy between, oxide and liquid Fe, gamma(oxide-Fe(I)). The nucleation rate decreases with an increase in gamma(oxide-Fe(I)) based on the homogeneous nucleation theory. Thus, the geometric standard deviation decreases with increasing the nucleation rate in which gamma(oxide-Fe(I)) is low such as the case of MnO-SiO2 particles, The experiment in which an Fe-10mass%Ni alloy was first deoxidized with Ti followed by Mg was carried out and narrow size distribution was obtained by separating the nucleation and growth processes.