Study of high-temperature interaction of titanium and boron by the electrothermal explosion method

The regularities of titanium and boron interaction in powder mixture within the temperatures of 1200-3500 K are studied. Due to high rates of chemical transformation within the mentioned temperature limits observation of Ti and B interaction with the help of isothermal techniques is not feasible. Therefore the electrothermal explosion method has been employed to that effect. Experiments have been conducted with two powder mixtures having boron/titanium atomic correlation of 2 and 1 respectfully, as well as with the samples of reactive mixture diluted by inactive powder of titanium diboride. Presented are typical thermograms, and relations of chemical heat-generation intensity to temperature are analyzed. A conclusion is made that the mixture starts to react intensively well before titanium melts. A result has been observed which is anomalous from the point of view of classic thermal analysis, namely - the higher is mixture heating rate conditioned by available electric power, the lower is intensity of chemical heat-generation at given temperature. On authors' opinion this effect can be explained by interaction in two stages.