The ultrafine WC-Co composite powder was synthesized by a newly developed rapid route based on in situ reactions. By using the as-synthesized composite powder, the granulation processing was then carried out to prepare the ultrafine-structured thermal spraying feedstock. The influences of the heat-treatment process on density of the feedstock powder, phase constitution and wear resistance of the resultant WC-Co coatings fabricated by high velocity oxy-fuel （HVOF） were investigated. The results showed that increasing the heating temperature and extending the holding time leaded to remarkable increase in the density and flowability of the feedstock powder. As a result, the decarburization of the in-flight particles could be decreased and the wear resistance of coating was significantly enhanced. The present study demonstrated that the developed techniques for the ultrafine powder and its thermal-sprayed coatings had very promising applications in scaling up to produce ultrafine-structured cermet coatings with excellent performance.
The negative thermal expansion （NTE） properties of the antiperovskite manganese nitrides with micron-scale, submicron-scale and nanometer-scale microstructures, respectively, were investigated using the Mn3Cu0.5Ge0.5N composition as an example. It was discovered that the NTE start temperature, NTE operation temperature range and coefficient of NTE change obviously in a wide range with decreasing the grain size level of the microstructure. The mechanisms for the broadening of the NTE operation temperature range and the decrease in the absolute value of NTE coefficient were proposed based on the grain-size-dependence of the frustrated magnetic interactions and magnetic ordering. The present study indicates that the NTE properties of the antiperovskite manganese nitrides can be tailored by the control of the microstructure scale.
