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Ternary carbide materials have been proposed for novel technological applications due to the combination of their specific properties as metals and ceramic materials. Among this vast family of compounds, Ti3AlC2 earned particular attention because it can be transformed through an etching process into the famous MXene Ti3C2, a laminar material with attractive properties for different fields of research and application. In our previous work, we showed the optimization of the synthesis of Ti3AlC2 (temperature gradient, soaking time, temperature, and gas flow) in a highly controlled furnace in an Ar atmosphere. In this work, we present the phase and morphological characterization of the Ti3AlC2 MAX phase produced by an innovative industry-oriented approach. For this purpose, the previously activated Ti/Al/C precursor mixture was subjected to a thermal regime at several soaking temperatures (1150°C, 1200°C, 1250°C, 1300°C, 1350°C, 1400°C), in a molten salt environment. The procedure allowed us to achieve products with ~ 60 wt% of Ti3AlC2 in all the cases, according to the phase composition analysis based on the X-ray diffraction patterns. The scanning electron microscopy, along with the EDS analysis, confirms the presence of Ti, Al, and C as the majority elements and its analysis allowed us to identify possible secondary products. In addition, the skeletal density of the samples was evaluated by He pycnometry, resulting in all cases in close values to the theoretical one, indicating a successful synthesis process. The slight deviation was attributed to the presence of non-desired phases.
Keywords: Max phases, cost-effective method, characterization© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.