Abstract
To fabricate W-Cu nanocomposite powder, $WO_3$-CuO powder mixture was high-energetically ball-milled and subsequently hydrogen-reduced. The effect of ball-milling on the hydrogen-reduction behavior of$ WO_3$-CuO was investigated with non-isothermal hygrometric analysis during hydrogen-reduction. Increasing the ball-milling time, the reduction peak temperatures of humidity curves were shifted to low temperature. It was considered that the reduction temperature should be decreased because the specific surface area of each oxide considerably increased with increasing the ball-milling time. In case of ball-milling for 0 h, $WO_3$and CuO were independently hydrogen-reduced and W particles were nucleated on the surface of Cu adjacent to W by CVT. However, in case of ball-milling for 50 h, the aggregates of about 200-300 nm were observed. W particles of size below 30-50 nm were homogeneously distributed with Cu in the aggregates.
