Most of all WC-based cemented carbides use cobalt as binder due to the excellent strength and ductility that this combination provides. Motivators to find alternative binders have been related to factors such as the shortage and price oscillations of the cobalt and toxicity of the WC-Co system. In this work, Fe-Ni-Nb was used as alternative binder for WC sintered via spark plasma sintering (SPS) technique. The composites were sintered at different sintering temperatures (1100 °C, 1200 °C and 1300 °C). In addition, WC-Co was sintered at 1200 °C via SPS for comparison purposes. X-ray diffraction and Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were employed as characterization methods to investigate the crystalline phase's formation, sintering effectiveness, porosity and phase distribution. Mechanical properties such as Vickers hardness, fracture toughness, nanohardness, elastic modulus and thermal properties (thermal expansion coefficient) were evaluated. The results demonstrate Fe-Ni-Nb as a viable alternative binder to cobalt in hardmetal applications.

由于这种组合具有出色的强度和延展性，因此所有基于WC的硬质合金中的大多数都将钴用作粘结剂。寻找替代粘结剂的动机与诸如钴的短缺和钴价格波动以及WC-Co系统的毒性等因素有关。在这项工作中，Fe-Ni-Nb被用作通过火花等离子烧结（SPS）技术烧结的WC的替代粘结剂。在不同的烧结温度（1100°C，1200°C和1300°C）下烧结复合材料。另外，为了进行比较，通过SPS在1200℃下烧结了WC-Co。采用X射线衍射和扫描电子显微镜（SEM）作为表征方法，研究了晶相的形成，烧结效果，孔隙率和相分布。机械性能，例如维氏硬度，评估了断裂韧性，纳米硬度，弹性模量和热性能（热膨胀系数）。结果表明，Fe-Ni-Nb是硬质合金应用中钴的可行替代粘结剂。