Synthesis of nanosized zirconium diboride powder with high purity via simply purified boron carbide

The purified B4C was applied in ZrB2 synthesis to remove B2O3 at the initial state, which causes an excess B4C requirement and abnormal growth. B4C showed decreasing oxygen content by washing time and was saturated at 0.22% after being washed five times. ZrO2 and washed B4C were heat-treated at 1250°C for 1 h for synthesis using carbothermal/borothermal reduction. With a crystallographic and elemental analysis of the synthesised particle, the optimised ZrO2 and B4C molar ratio range was selected as 0.83 to 0.87 and washed five times. The synthesised particles measured 103.0 mm to 199.9 nm at various molar ratios. However, no change in the morphology due to the B2O3 liquid phase was observed in the SEM image and particle size distribution.