Engineering, 2014, 6, 849-868 Published Online December 2014 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/eng http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/eng.2014.613079 How to cite this paper: Aizenshtein, M., Froumin, N. and Frage, N. (2014) Experimental Study and Thermodynamic Analysis of High Temperature Interactions between Boron Carbide and Liquid Metals. Engineering, 6, 849-868. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/eng.2014.613079 Experimental Study and Thermodynamic Analysis of High Temperature Interactions between Boron Carbide and Liquid Metals Michael Aizenshtein 1* , Natalya Froumin 2 , Nachum Frage 2 1 Department of Materials, NRC-Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel 2 Department of Material Engineering, Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, Israel Email: * aizensht@bgu.ac.il Received 5 September 2014; revised 23 October 2014; accepted 9 November 2014 Copyright © 2014 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Abstract Fabrication of MCCs (Metal Ceramic Composites) and ceramic brazing requires improved wetting properties are often absent in various ceramic/metals systems. This report summarizes a com- prehensive study concerning the wetting properties of boron carbide in contact with non-reactive metals such as Cu, Au, Ag, and Sn. In order to improve wetting, three different reactive elements were added to the melts; Si, which has relatively high affinity to C, leads to SiC formation and changes the stoichiometric boron carbide composition (B4C) towards lower carbon content; Ti, which displays high affinity to B, leads to TiB2 formation and free carbon precipitation at the in- terface; and finally, Al, which forms borocarbide phases at the interface. It was found that Cu is unusual with respect to boron carbide compared the other non-reactive metals. The most impor- tant difference is its ability to dissolve ~25 at% of B, which makes B adequate as an additive to Cu in addition to Si, Ti, and Al. When boron was used as an alloying element, its effect on wetting be- havior was attributed to altering the boron carbide composition in contact with boron-containing melts. It was concluded that the most important properties of boron carbide that affect wetting phenomena are the relatively low chemical stability and the existence of a wide composition range (B4C-B10C). The first property determines the possibility of boron carbide to react with liquid met- als (by dissolution or formation of new phases) and the second offers an additional degree of freedom to improve its wetting by changing the composition of the ceramic phase. Keywords Boron Carbide, Titanium Diboride, Silicon Carbide, Metals, Wetting, Interface * Corresponding author.