LAUSR

Abstract The weak oxidation resistance has severely hindered graphite from various high temperature applications, therefore in this paper a molten salt technique was proposed to prepare titanium aluminium carbide based coatings on graphite flakes to overcome this problem. The resultant TiC-Ti3AlC coated graphite showed higher peak oxidation temperature (~ 900 °C) than the uncoated one (700 °C), suggesting that the coatings will afford graphite with superior oxidation resistance. Such improvements can be largely ascribed to not only the homogenous and crack-free TiC-Ti3AlC coatings and their resultant relicts of TiO2 and Al2O3, but also the molten salt technique for preparing the coatings. Especially the molten salts offer fast dissolution/melting/dispersion of Ti/Al powders, rapid reaction with graphite in the salt melts, and homogenous growth of the carbide coatings on the surface of graphite flakes at as low temperatures as 950–1150 °C.