Characterization of in-Situ Synthesized WC-Co Powder and Its HVOF Sprayed Coating

Thermally sprayed WC-Co has been extensively used in many industrial applications due to the advantage of excellent wear resistance. Recently, ultra-grained WC-Co coating or nanostructured WC-Co coating has drawn increasingly attentions. It was also shown by a number of studies that the characteristics of the feedstock significantly affect the performance of ultra-grained WC-Co coating, i.e. coating adhesion, wear behavior, etc. In this paper, a novel route of preparing ultrafine-grained WC-6Co and WC-12Co powder, based on in-situ reduction and carbonization is presented. The characterization of the synthesized powder is analyzed and the microstructure and HVOF sprayed coatings is studied. The coating performance is also evaluated and compared to the conventional counterpart.