Corrosion performance and possible mechanism of aluminium nitride-molybdenum gradient material in a simulated liquid metal battery environment

After being fabricated successfully by spark plasma sintering technology, corrosion performance of aluminum nitride-molybdenum gradient material was investigated using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope, XPS techniques, etc. in a simulated liquid metal battery environment with LiF–LiBr–LiCl eutectic salt as electrolyte. The research results indicated that low temperature corrosion at 550 °C occurs mainly in pure aluminum nitride region with the corrosion products grown on the grain boundaries including alumina, nitrogen-lithium, aluminum-lithium intermediate phase or their complex compounds. Moreover, the formed corrosion product morphology is influenced significantly by aluminum nitride distribution. As the gradient compositions developed towards the pure molybdenum zone, the product morphologies tended to evolve in a sequence of sphere, flake and octahedron. At temperatures higher than 600 °C, alumina tends to be dissolved in molten salt vapor and molybdenum starts to be corroded simultaneously resulting in a substitute of the formed lithium aluminum molybdenum oxide phases for alumina in the final corrosion products. Mass change study on the samples suggested both the holding time and temperature have significant influences on the corrosion behavior of aluminum nitride-molybdenum gradient material. At temperatures higher than 700 °C, sudden change in sample mass accompanied by interface cracking would happen within the holding time of 100 h. Therefore, under long-term isothermal conditions, the serviced temperature of aluminum nitride-molybdenum functional gradient materials is suggested to be lower than 600 °C.