Electrochemical Synthesis of Composite Materials Based on Nanoscale Powders of Tungsten Carbides with Carbon Nanomaterials in NaCl-KCl Melt

The peculiarities of the partial and joint electroreduction of tungsten and carbon are studied at Pt and glassy-carbon cathodes in the chloride-oxide melt NaCl-KCl-Na₂WO₄-NaPO₃-CO₂ by the method of cyclic voltammetry. The fields of potentials, current densities and correlation of bath components are determined for the high-temperature electrochemical synthesis (HTES) of composite powder mixtures on the basis of tungsten carbides (WC and W₂C) with carbon nanomaterials (CNM), monophase powders of WC and W₂C. Physical – chemical properties, structural and morphological features of carbide products are studied by the methods of chemical analysis, XRD, SEM, TEM, BET, Raman spectroscopy. Investigations have shown that it is possible to produce by the electrolytic method the composition mixtures of nanosized powders of tungsten carbides (WC and W₂C) with CNM of different composition, nanofibers and nanorods of hexagonal α-WC (diameter 25-200 nm, length – about 10 µm) with the specific surface about 40 m²/g, which can be used as electrode material for the different tasks of electrocatalysis.

Figure 1. TEM images and electron diffraction patterns of electrolytic tungsten carbide WC (sample 2.12).