Preparing low-oxygen Ti-6Al-4V alloy powder through direct reduction of oxides and its synergistic reaction mechanism

Ti-6Al-4V alloy powder was prepared through a two-step reduction of a mixture of TiO 2 , V 2 O 5 and Al 2 O 3 in this study. The oxide mixture was first reduced by Mg in MgCl 2 at 750 °C in argon, where oxygen was reduced to 2.47 wt% from 40.02 wt%. The oxygen content in the final powder was eventually reduced to an extremely low level (0.055 wt%) using calcium at 900 °C in argon, and the final powder had the composition of 90.12 wt% Ti, 5.57 wt% Al, and 3.87 wt% V, which meets the standard specification of Ti-6Al-4V (ASTM F1108-09). Between the two reductions, a heat treatment step was designed to help controlling the specific surface area and particle size. The effect of the heat treatment temperature on the morphology, and composition uniformity of the powder was investigated in detail. Heat treatment above 1300 °C attributed to a dense powder with a controlled specific surface area. Thermodynamic modeling and experimental results indicated that only α -Ti enriched with Al and β-Ti enriched with V exist in the final powder, and other possible phases including Al-Mg and Al-V were excluded. This study also offers a triple-step thermochemical process for producing high-purity Ti-based alloy powder.