Vanadium carbide is the inorganic compound with the formula VC. It is an extremely hard and refractory ceramic material. With a hardness of 9-9.5 Mohs, it is possibly the hardest metal-carbide known. It is of interest because it is prevalent in vanadium metal and alloys.
Structure and preparation
Being isomorphous with vanadium monoxide, it crystallizes in the rock salt structure. Because VC and VO are miscible, samples of VC typically contain an impurity of the oxide.3 It is produced by heating vanadium oxides with carbon at around 1000 °C. Vanadium carbide can be formed in the (111) orientation, when formed by radio frequency magnetron sputtering. Although VC is thermodynamically stable, it converts to V2C at higher temperatures.
Vanadium carbide is used as an additive to cemented carbide, to refine the carbide crystals and thereby get an increased hardness of the inserts.
Physical properties
Vanadium Carbide has an elastic modulus of approximately 380 GPa.4
References
"Ceramic and Cermet Composite Powders - PPM Ltd". Archived from the original on 11 September 2016. Retrieved 13 September 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160911133534/http://www.ppm.bc.ca/Cermet_Carbide_Nitride_Powder_Products.html ↩
Günter Bauer, Volker Güther, Hans Hess, Andreas Otto, Oskar Roidl, Heinz Roller, Siegfried Sattelberger "Vanadium and Vanadium Compounds" in Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry, 2005, Wiley-VCH, Weinheim. doi:10.1002/14356007.a27_367 /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩
Günter Bauer, Volker Güther, Hans Hess, Andreas Otto, Oskar Roidl, Heinz Roller, Siegfried Sattelberger "Vanadium and Vanadium Compounds" in Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry, 2005, Wiley-VCH, Weinheim. doi:10.1002/14356007.a27_367 /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩
Hannink, R.; Murry, M. (1974). "Elastic moduli measurements of some cubic transition metal carbides and alloyed carbides". Journal of Materials Science. 9 (2): 223–228. Bibcode:1974JMatS...9..223H. doi:10.1007/BF00550945. S2CID 135599970. /wiki/Bibcode_(identifier) ↩