Influences of oxygen impurity contained in nitrogen on the reaction of titanium with nitrogen

Abstract

In this work, Ti pellets were selected as a model system to investigate the influences of oxygen impurity in nitrogen gas on the reaction of a metal with the nitrogen. Analyzing changes in the in situ oxygen partial pressures when titanium specimens were annealed in the oxygen-containing nitrogen shows that the dissolution of oxygen in Ti and TiN(x) is exothermic, and the solubility decreases as the temperature increases. X-ray diffraction results show that nitridation of Ti occurred before oxidation, even in an oxygen-containing nitrogen atmosphere. Kinetics apparently predominates over thermodynamics at low temperatures in such a system.