Analysis of boron treatment for V removal using AlB 2 and AlB12 based master alloys

Boron treatment is a widely used practice in industry for removing transition metals such as Ti, V, and Zr. Mostly, Al-B master alloys containing AlB2 and AlB12 are used for the treatment. This paper describes the analysis and comparison of the boron treatment using these two types of Al-B master alloys. Kinetic experiments of V removal using the two alloys were carried out for alloy Al-lwt %V at 750°C in a resistance furnace. Samples were taken at regular interval and characterized using scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). The change of V concentration, analyzed using ICP (inductively coupled plasma) analysis, was also tracked with reaction time. It has been shown that the kinetics of boron treatment using AlB2 based alloy was faster compared to those using AIB12, which was related to the particle size and available interfacial area for reaction. Boride particles settling was also analyzed in the present study using multi-locations sampling technique that revealed faster settling for AlB12 based master alloys compared to AIB2