Structural study of carbon deficient tungsten carbide nanoparticles prepared by different carbon sources

A systematic study on the effect of different carbon sources on the structural properties of carbon-deficient tungsten carbide (W₂C) nanoparticles prepared by the thermochemical route was carried out. The synthesis process has been done for different reaction times as well as amounts of carbon sources at a temperature of 600 °C. The prepared material is characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD). Further, the XRD analysis clearly indicates the existence of W₂C nanoparticles with (102) preferential orientation of plane. In the structural study, the estimation of crystallite sizes and lattice strain of W₂C was done by X-ray peak broadening through Williamson-Hall (W–H) analysis. In addition to this, the physical parameters such as strain, stress and energy density values were also calculated from the modified form of the W–H plot more precisely by considering the reflection peaks of XRD corresponding to the W₂C using the uniform deformation model, uniform stress deformation model, uniform deformation energy density model.