A novel sonochemical synthesis of nano-size silicon nitride and titanium carbide

Nano-size ceramic powders of silicon nitride and titanium carbide have been successfully synthesized by a novel sonochemical method in a greener, faster, facile, and safer way. This simplest method to obtain silicon nitride nanopowder involves reacting silicon dioxide with activated carbon in liquid ammonia for one hour using ultrasound energy at 20 kHz. Titanium carbide nano-powders have been successfully synthesized by reacting titanium dioxide with activated carbon in the ratio 1:3. The product was characterized by Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) to know the phase composition, Size distribution analysis by intensity using zeta sizer showed that the samples consisted of particles with an average diameter of 76 nm for Silicon nitride and 127 nm for Titanium carbide respectively. Si₃N₄ and TiC nanopowders were obtained with the specific surface area of 803.67 m²/g and 731.78 m²/g respectively.