Equal parts tungsten and carbon atoms make up the chemical compound known as tungsten carbide. Tungsten carbide is a fine, grey powder in its most basic form, but it can be crushed and molded into forms via a process called sintering for use in jewelry, cutting tools, abrasives, and industrial machinery. This article will guide you in knowing about what is tungsten carbide and its uses. Tungsten carbide is a common material for wedding bands. Compared to gold and silver rings, tungsten carbide rings are significantly more robust. The hardness of tungsten rings ranges from 8 to 9 on the Mohs scale.

The Composition of Tungsten Carbide

Both a cubic high-temperature version of tungsten carbide with a rock salt structure and a hexagonal shape are available. The tungsten and carbon both have a typical trigonal prismatic, 6 coordination because the hexagonal structure is composed of a simple hexagonal lattice of metal atoms in layers that are immediately over one another and are not tightly packed. According to the unit cell dimensions, the tungsten carbon bond length is 220 pm, the minimum distance between tungsten atoms in neighboring layers is 284 pm, and the hexagonally packed layer of tungsten has tungsten atoms with 291 pm long bonds. The length of the tungsten-carbon bond is equivalent to the length of the single bond in W(CH3)6 due to the fact that tungsten is highly twisted and trigonal prismatically coordinated in W(CH3)6 (218 pm).

Creating Tungsten Carbide

When carbon and tungsten metal are combined at temperatures between 1400 and 2000 degrees Celsius, tungsten carbide is the result. One of the other techniques uses a patented lower temperature fluid bed process that interacts with blue WO3 or tungsten metal at temperatures between 900 and 1200 °C. WO3 may also be immediately heated to 900 degrees Celsius with graphite or heated to 670 degrees Celsius in hydrogen before being carburized at 1000 degrees Celsius in argon.

Research has been done on the following chemical vapour deposition techniques:

Tungsten hexachloride reacts with hydrogen (acting as a reducing agent) and methane at 670 °C (1,238 °F) (as a carbon source).

H2 + CH4 + WCl6 = WC + 6 HCI

Tungsten hexafluoride reacts with hydrogen (acting as a reducing agent) and methanol at 350 °C (662 °F) (as a carbon source).

WC + 6 HF + H2O = WF6 + 2 H2 + CH3OH.