To soften the extreme sintering conditions of Tungsten Carbide (WC), a 3 wt.% of metallic nickel (Ni) was added to the starting powders. To ensure a fair distribution of the second phase and an intimate mixture of the phases, the colloidal process was adopted. A commercial Ni and a in-house synthesised nanosized nickel were used as sintering aids. Rheological studies allowed a high dispersion of the nickel in the final composite powders. Sintering studies by Hot-Pressing route (HP) proved the great benefices of Ni as a sintering aid, decreasing the maximum temperature necessary to achieve full densification, from 1900 to 1450 °C and dwell times from 20 to 7 min. Among all the materials obtained, the best results in terms of density, microstructure and properties were obtained for WC-nNi, which achieved hardness of 14.8 GPa and toughness comparable to conventional cermets with much higher content of metallic phase.

为了软化碳化钨（WC）的极端烧结条件，向起始粉末中添加了3 wt。％的金属镍（Ni）。为了确保第二相和各相的均匀混合，采用了胶体工艺。商业镍和内部合成的纳米镍被用作烧结助剂。流变学研究允许镍在最终复合粉末中高度分散。通过热压法（HP）进行的烧结研究证明，镍作为烧结助剂具有极大的优势，将实现完全致密化所需的最高温度从1900降低至1450°C，将停留时间从20降低至7分钟。在所获得的所有材料中，WC-nNi的密度，微观结构和性能方面的最佳结果均达到了14。