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The nitridation of alkaline earth fluoride added silicon powder compacts to produce silicon nitride in a flowing 5% hydrogen / 95% nitrogen stream was investigated by a thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA)technique. The effect of operating variables, including kinds of alkalineearth fluorides added, gaseous flow rate, amount of barium fluoride added,compact forming pressure, nitrogen concentration and reaction temperatureon the nitridation were extensively examined. The analysis of the experiment was conducted by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope.(SEM). Experimental results indicated that the order of three alkaline earthfluorides added effect on the nitridation rate is BaF2> MgF2>CaF2.Changing the gaseous flow rate had no influence on the reaction. The proper barium fluoride added in silicon powder would singnificantly promote the nitridation rate and the yield of silicon nitride. In addition, thereaction rate could be increased by decreasing the compact forming pressure, increasing the nitrogen concentration and the reaction temperautre. Moreover, the primary progress of nitridation was thegas/solid reaction and the major product of silicon nitride was in the formof fine whiskers. From the kinetic analysis, we found that the reaction order of the nitridation was 1.47 ± 0.05 and the activation energy of thereaction was 559.2 ± 7 kJ/mol.
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