Thermal stability of amorphous Mg50Ni50 alloy produced by mechanical alloying

Abstract Amorphous Mg 50 Ni 50 alloy was produced by mechanical alloying (MA) of the elemental powders Mg and Ni using a SPEX 8000D mill. The alloyed powders were microstructurally characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD). The thermal transformation of amorphous Mg 50 Ni 50 into stable intermetallics (Mg 50 Ni 50 → remaining amorphous + Mg 2 Ni → Mg 2 Ni + MgNi 2 ) was analyzed using the Kissinger and isoconversional methods based on the non-isothermal differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) experiments. The apparent activation energies ( E a ) and the transformation diagrams, temperature–time–transformation ( T – T – T ) and temperature–heating rate–transformation (T–HR–T), were obtained for both processes. A good agreement was observed between the calculated transformation curves and the experimental data, which verifies the reliability of the method utilized.