Thermodynamic insight into the growth of nanoscale inclusion of Al-deoxidation in Fe–O–Al melt

Products of Al-deoxidation reaction in iron melt are the most common inclusions and play an important effect on steel performance. Understanding the thermodynamics on nano-alumina (or nano-hercynite) is very critical to explore the relationship between Al-deoxidation reaction and products growth in iron melt. In present study, a thermodynamic modeling of nano-alumina inclusions in Fe–O–Al melt has been developed. The thermodynamic results show that the Gibbs free energy changes for the formation of nano-Al(2)O(3) and nano-FeAl(2)O(4) decrease with the increasing size and increase with the increasing temperature. The Gibbs free energy changes for transformation of nano-Al(2)O(3) into bulk-Al(2)O(3) increase with the increasing size and temperature. The thermodynamic curve of nano-alumina (or nano-hercynite) and the equilibrium curve of bulk-alumina (or bulk-hercynite) obtained in this work are agree with the published experimental data of Al-deoxidation equilibria in liquid iron. In addition, the thermodynamic coexisting points about Al(2)O(3) and FeAl(2)O(4) in liquid iron are in a straight line and coincide with the various previous data. It suggested that these scattered experimental data maybe in the different thermodynamic state of Al-deoxidized liquid iron and the reaction products for most of the previous Al-deoxidation experiments are nano-alumina (or nano-hercynite).