Silicon Carbide Coating on Graphite and Isotropic C/C Composite by Chemical Vapour Reaction

The application of Carbon and graphite based materials in unprotected environment is limited to a temperature of $450^\circC$ or so because of their susceptibility to oxidation at this temperature and higher. To over come these obstacles a low cost chemical vapour reaction process (CVR) was developed to give crystalline and high purity SiC coating on graphite and isotropic C/C composite. CVR is most effective carbothermal reduction method for conversation of a few micron of carbon layer to SiC. In the CVR method, a sic conversation layer is formed by reaction between carbon and gaseous reagent silicon monoxide at high temperature. Characterization of SiC coating was carried out using SEM. The other properties studied were hardness density and conversion efficiency.