Abstract
A novel method to prepare ultrafine WC was proposed: the PbWO4 prepared by hydrothermal synthesis was used as raw material, and WC was obtained through the carbothermic reduction-carburization process. PbWO4 was used as the tungsten intermediate product to avoid the introduction of ammonia nitrogen reagent. The carbon reduction method can avoid the generation of water vapor and inhibit the growth of tungsten powder. Results show that more than 99.9wt% of W is extracted in the form of PbWO4 from the Na2WO4 solution under the conditions of initial pH value of 7.0, reaction temperature of 160 °C, and reaction time of 4.5 h. Then, the homogeneous mixture of W and C is obtained by the carbothermic reduction of PbWO4 at 950 °C for 3 h with the molar ratio of carbon:tungsten as 5. Pre-adding excessive carbon in the mixture can inhibit the agglomeration of tungsten powder. Subsequ-ently, the WC powder with particle size of about 60 nm is obtained by the carburization of the W and C mixture at 1200 °C for 6 h.
Tungsten is an important strategic metal to produce cemented tungsten carbides (WC
With the development of modern technique, the particle size is refined from 0.2 μm to 0.1 μm (BET measurement value) in the industrial production of ultrafine WC powder
Currently, many methods are proposed to prepare tungsten carbide powder. Among them, mechanical alloying is a simple technique to produce ultrafine WC powder. Razavi et a
There are various problems during the treatment of ammonia nitrogen wastewater in the tungsten metallurgy industry, which makes it difficult to obtain ultrafine tungsten powder via the hydrogen reduction of WOx. Therefore, in this research, a novel method was proposed to obtain ultrafine WC powder via the hydrothermal synthesis of PbWO4 coupled with carbothermic reduction-carburization process. In this treatment process, tungsten was extracted from sodium tungstate leachate based on the low solubility of PbWO4. Then, based on the highly saturated vapor pressure of lead, PbWO4 was reduced by carbon and then the lead was volatilized as gaseous form, separated from the ultrafine WC powder. To suppress the agglomeration of ultrafine tungsten powder, carbon for WC generation was added before the carbon reduction of WOx. Thus, the W-C mixed powder was obtained through the carbothermal reduction process. Finally, the W-C mixed powder was carburized at high temperature to obtain ultrafine WC powder.
All reagents used in this research were of chemical grade and without further purification. Pb(NO3)2, CH3CH2OH, HNO3, and NaOH were purchased from Sinopharm Group Chemical Reagent Co., Ltd, China. Na2WO4·2H2O was purchased from Shanghai Macklin Biochemical Technology Co., Ltd. Carbon black (MA100, 99.5wt% purity) was purchased from Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation.
In the typical hydrothermal synthesis, 100 mL Na2WO4 solution containing 100 g/L WO3 and equimolar concentration of Pb(NO3)2 solution were prepared. The solutions were mixed and stirred for 30 min. NaOH and HNO3 solutions were used to adjust the pH value of the mixed solutions during stirring. The as-prepared mixture was transferred to a stainless steel autoclave (500 mL), which was then sealed and hydrother-mally treated. The influence of hydrothermal reaction temperature, holding time, and pH value on the hydrothermal products was studied. The precipitate produced during the reaction was washed several times with deionized water and absolute ethanol, and they were dried at 80 °C for 6 h.
The carbothermal reduction-carburization experiment was conducted in a horizontal tube furnace (GSL-1700X, Hefei Kejing Materials Technology Co., Ltd). PbWO4 and carbon black were mechanically mixed in an agate mortar for 20 min. Then, 5.6 g mixed powder was placed in an alumina boat and pushed into the tube furnace for carbon reduction. The speci-men was heated to the designed temperature at heating rate of 5 °C/min and held for different durations. After reactions, the specimens were cooled to room temperature, removed from the furnace, and mixed again. Finally, after putting the mixture back into the furnace, the furnace was reheated to a high temperature at heating rate of 5 °C/min to initiate the carburi-zation process. The whole reaction process was conducted under the protection of argon flow (100 mL/min).
The carbothermal reduction process of PbWO4 was studied by non-isothermal experiment using thermogravimetric (TG) analysis/differential scanning caloimetry (DSC) simultaneous thermal analyzer (STA 449 F5 Jupiter, NETZSCH, Germany). The specimen was placed into the analyzer, heated from room temperature to 1200 °C at heating rate of 5 °C/min, and held for 1 h under the protection of argon flow (80 mL/min). The morphology, particle size, and distribution of reaction pro-ducts were observed through field emission-scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM, CLARA, TESCAN, Czech Republic) and transmission electron microscope (TEM, JEM-F200, JEOL, Japan). The phase composition of reaction products was deter-mined by X-ray diffraction (XRD, Empyrean, PANalytical, Netherlands). The concentration of tungsten in the solution was determined by ICP-OES (ICP 7400, Thermofisher, USA).
The pH value of Na2WO4 solution was adjusted for PbWO4 precipitation. The precipitation effect is shown in

Fig.1 Effect of initial pH value of Na2WO4 solution on PbWO4 precipitation at 160 °C for 4.5 h (a); XRD patterns of hydrothermal products prepared at different pH values (b); FE-SEM morphologies of PbWO4 precipitates synthesized at pH=3 (c), pH=7 (d), and pH=11 (e)
FE-SEM morphologies of PbWO4 nanocrystals are shown in Fig.

Fig.2 XRD patterns (a) and FE-SEM morphologies (b–e) of hydrothermal reaction products prepared at pH=7 and different temperatures for 4.5 h: (b) 25 °C, (c) 140 °C, (d) 160 °C, and (e) 180 °C

Fig.3 XRD patterns (a) and FE-SEM morphologies (b–d) of hydrothermal reaction products prepared at pH=7 and 160 °C for different durations: (b) 1.5 h, (c) 4 h, and (d) 7.5 h
To investigate the feasibility of the carbothermal reduction of PbWO4, thermodynamic calculations were conducted. Changes in the Gibbs free energy were used to determine the spontaneity of the reaction, and the initial reaction temperature was determined with ΔG=

Fig.4 Thermodynamics of reduction and carburization process of PbWO4 (a); TG, DSC, and temperature curves of reaction production during carbothermal reduction with molar ratio of C:PbWO4=5.5 (b)

Fig.5 XRD patterns of carbothermic reaction products obtained under different reduction processes: (a) C:PbWO4=5.5, 3 h, different temper-atures; (b) 950 °C, C:PbWO4=5.5, different durations; (c) 950 °C, 3 h, different molar ratios of C:PbWO4; FE-SEM morphologies of carbothermic reduction products obtained under molar ratio of C:PbWO4=5 (d), C:PbWO4=5.5 (e), and C:PbWO4=6 (f); FE-SEM image and corresponding EDS element distributions of carbothermic reduction product obtained under molar ratio of C:PbWO4=5 (g)
As shown in
As shown in
To convert the carbothermic reduction products obtained at 950 °C for 3 h under different molar ratios of C:PbWO4 to WC, the specimens were subsequently carburized at high temperatures. However, since the carbothermic reduction of PbWO4 involves the evolution of CO2, CO, and Pb vapor, many gaps are formed in the products, which impedes the growth of reduced W powder via the aggregation and sintering of small crystals. Additionally, W powder is not in full contact with the remaining carbon black, resulting in extremely slow carburization reaction between W powder and carbon black, i.e., incomplete carburization. Therefore, after the carbother-mal reduction, the reduced products are mixed again for full contact between W powder and carbon black, which ameliorates the carburization kinetics.

Fig.6 XRD patterns (a) and FE-SEM morphologies (b–g) of reaction products obtained under different carburizing conditions: (b) C:PbWO4=5.5, 1100 °C, 6 h; (c) C:PbWO4=5.5, 1200 °C, 6 h; (d) C:PbWO4=5.5, 1300 °C, 6 h; (e) C:PbWO4=5, 1200 °C, 6 h; (f) C:PbWO4=6, 1200 °C, 6 h; (g) C:PbWO4=5.5, 1200 °C, 3 h
Compared with that of the carbothermic products before reduction, the morphology of most particles does not obviously change. When C:PbWO4=5 (theoretical value), most WC powder particles show irregular shapes and are connected to each other. The particle size is 60–150 nm. With increasing the molar ratio value of C:PbWO4, more and more particles become smaller and have regular shapes. When molar ration of C:PbWO4=5.5 and 6, the particle size is about 65 nm. TEM morphology of the WC particles prepared at 1200 °C after carburizing for 6 h under the molar ratio of C:PbWO4=5.5 is shown in

Fig.7 TEM morphology of WC particles prepared at 1200 °C after carburizing for 6 h under molar ratio of C:PbWO4=5.5
The growth mechanism of WC powder during carbothermic reduction-carburization process is presented in

Fig.8 Schematic diagram of growth mechanism of WC powder during carbothermic reduction-carburization process (a) and CVT mechanism of W powder growth (b)

Fig.9 Schematic diagram of WC powder preparation process
1) PbWO4 with average particle size of 0.4 μm can be prepared by hydrothermal method, and more than 99.9wt% of tungsten can be recycled.
2) Tungsten powder containing carbon can be obtained
by reducing PbWO4 at 950 °C for 3 h under the molar ratio of C:PbWO4=5. Excess C can inhibit the agglomeration of tung-sten powder, and the average particle size of tungsten powder is about 55 nm.
3) WC powder with average particle size of 60 nm can be obtained after the tungsten carbide powder is carbonized at 1200 °C for 6 h.
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