Hot pressing of nanometer WC–Co powder

Abstract Nanometer WC–Co powder was hot pressed in order to develop new processes and improve the properties of WC–Co cemented carbides. Density and hardness were measured. The microstructures of sintered alloys were observed by SEM. And the grain size of WC in alloys was also measured. The results show that hot pressing can lower the sintering temperature by about 100 °C, increases the density (more than 99%) and circumscribes the growth of grain size (smaller than 1 μm) of alloys. Hardness can also be improved up to HRA 92 by this process. Hot pressing is an effective method to get WC–Co cemented carbides with fine grain size and good properties.