Pressure-Temperature Diagram of Critical Condition for Disproportionation of Nd-Fe-B Alloy in Hydrogen

The HDDR (hydrogenation, disproportionation, desorption, and recombination) process can be used as an effective way of converting a no coercivity Nd-Fe-B ingot material, with a coarse $Nd_2Fe_{14}B$ grain structure, to a highly coercive one with a fine grain structure. Careful control of the HDDR process can lead to an anisotropic powder with good $Nd_2Fe_{14}B$ grain texture; the most critical step for inducing texture is disproportionation. The critical conditions (hydrogen pressure and temperature) for the disproportionation reaction of fully hydrogenated $Nd_{12.5}Fe_{81.1-(x+y)}B_{6.4}Ga_xNb_y$ (x = 0 or 0.3, y = 0 or 0.2) alloys, in different atmospheres of pure hydrogen and a mixed gas of hydrogen and argon, was investigated with TPA (thermopiezic analyser). From this, the hydrogen pressure-temperature diagram showing the critical conditions was established. The critical disproportionation temperature of the fully hydrogenated $Nd_{12.5}Fe_{81.1-(x+y)}B_{6.4}Ga_xNb_y$ alloys was slightly increased as the hydrogen pressure decreased in both pure hydrogen and mixed gas. The critical disproportionation temperature of the hydrogenated alloys was higher in the mixed gas than in pure hydrogen. Addition of Ga and Nb increased the critical disproportionation temperature of the fully hydrogenated Nd-Fe-B alloys.