Low-temperature preparation of refractory alloys

Abstract

The escalating cost of energy has stimulated interest in the preparation of refractory and ceramic materials by low-temperature methods. Such methods are particularly attractive for the preparation of catalysts because the products are more finely divided than those obtained from conventional solid-state reactions, and they are also of academic interest because they provide the opportunity to examine some previously inaccessible low-temperature areas of phase diagrams. So far, interest has focused mainly on the synthesis of mixed metal oxides by the ignition of precursors which have been precipitated from aqueous solution¹ or freeze dried², although platinum metal alloys have also been prepared, for example by the reduction of salts which have been impregnated on a silica support³. I report here the low-temperature synthesis of the refractory alloy Mo–W by precipitation from aqueous solution followed by hydrogen reduction.