Microstructural characterization and thermodynamic analysis of MoZn produced by mechanical alloying

In this work, the microstructural evolution of MoZn during mechanical alloying (MA) was studied. The phases and morphology at each stage of milling were studied by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. The experimental results showed that a MoZn solid solution was produced from a mixture of Mo and Zn powders with crystallite size of 36.2 nm after 100 h of milling. A thermodynamic analysis of the Mo-Zn system was performed using the Miedema model to study the stability of the MA product. The calculations revealed no thermodynamic driving force in the Mo-Zn binary to form a solid solution phase in all compositions, suggesting that external energy has to be provided to produce the Mo-Zn phase.