In the present study, the focus is on the analysis of carbothermal reduction of the titanium-cobalt-oxygen based oxide powder by solid carbon for the optimizing synthesis process of ultra fined TiC/Co composite powder. The titanium-cobalt-oxygen based oxide powder was prepared by the combination of the spray drying and desalting processes using the titanium dioxide powder and cobalt nitrate as the raw materials. The titanium-cobalt-oxygen based oxide powder was mixed with carbon black, and then this mixture was carbothermally reduced under a flowing argon atmosphere. The changes in the phase structure and thermal gravity of the mixture during carbothermal reduction were analysed using XRD and TGA. The synthesized titanium-cobalt-oxygen based oxide powder has a mixture of and . This oxide powder was transformed to a mixed state of titanium car-bide and cobalt by solid carbon through four steps of carbothermal reduction steps with increasing temperature; reduction of to and Co, reduction of , to the magneli phase(, n>3), reduction of the mag-neli phase(, n>3) to the (2n3) phases, and reduction and carburization of the (2n3) phases to titanium carbide.

In the present study, the focus is on the synthesis of titanium carbide/cobalt composite powder by the spray thermal conversion process using metallic salt solution as the raw materials. Two types of oxide powders of Ti-Co-O system were prepared by the spray drying of two types of metallic salt solutions : titanium chloride-cobalt nitrate and powder-cobalt nitrate solutions. These oxide powders were mixed with carbon black, and then these mixtures were carbothermal reduced under a flowing argon atmosphere. The changes in the phase structure and thermal gravity of the mixtures during carbothermal reduction were analysed using XRD and TG-DTA. In the case of using the titanium chloride-cobalt nitrate solution, it could not be obtained TiC/Co composite powder due to contamination of the impurities during the spray drying of the solution. However, in tile case of using the powder-cobalt nitrate scullion, TiC-15 wt. %Co composite powder could be synthesized by the spray thermal conversion process. The synthesized TiC-15 wt. %Co composite powder at 120 for 2 hours has average particle size of 150 nm.