In this work, the electrical explosion of wire in liquid and subsequent spark plasma sintering (SPS) was introduced for the fabrication of Ni-graphite nanocomposites. The fabricated composite exhibited good enhancements in mechanical properties, such as yield strength and hardness, but reduced the ductility in comparison with that of nickel. The as-synthesized Ni-graphite (5 vol.% graphite) nanocomposite exhibited a compressive yield strength of 275 MPa (about 1.6 times of SPS-processed monolithic nickel ~170 MPa) and elongation to failure ~22%. The hardness of Nigraphite composite had a value of 135.46 HV, which is about 1.3 times higher than that of pure SPS-processed Ni (105.675 HV). In terms of processing, this work demonstrated that this processing route is a novel, simple, and low-cost method for the synthesis of nickel-graphite composites.

Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Experimental
3. Results and discussion
    3.1 Characterization of as-synthesized graphite and Ni-graphite composite powders
    3.2. Spark plasma sintering of Ni-graphite composite powders
    3.3. Characterization of the as-sintered Ni-graphite composites.
4. Conclusions
References

• Minh Thuyet-Nguyen(School of Materials Science and Engineering, Hanoi University of Science and Technology)
• Jin-Chun Kim(School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Ulsan) Corresponding Author