Microstructure and Magnetic Properties of Fe/ZrSiO4 Composites Prepared by Mechanical Milling and Spark Plasma Sintering

Fe/ZrSiO
₄
composite compacts with high thermal stability and excellent soft magnetic performance were prepared successfully by mechanical milling and spark plasma sintering. The effect of ZrSiO
₄
content on microstructure and magnetic properties of the Fe/ZrSiO
₄
composite compacts was investigated in detail. ZrSiO
₄
could be coated uniformly on the surface of Fe particles. With the increasing ZrSiO
₄
content, the core losses are effectively reduced, but the effective permeability and the saturation magnetic magnetization gradually decrease, while the coercivity has shown the opposite trend accordingly. The composite compact with 7.5 wt% ZrSiO
₄
has shown the superior structure and soft magnetic properties such as high saturation magnetic magnetization (202.20 emu/g), stable effective magnetic permeability (29.39), and lower core loss (4.53 W
^.
kg
^-1
at 5 kHz). The results indicated that the Fe/ZrSiO
₄
composite compacts had potential application prospects in electromagnetic conversion equipment at medium and high frequencies.