Abstract
The effect of pulsed current on TiB2 formed by reactive consolidation between titanium and boron is reported in this paper. This consolidation was performed using the plasma pressure compaction (P2C) technique. A comparison between the pulsed and control samples reveals that pulsed current reduces grain growth (pulsed samples had an average grain size of 2·79 μm compared to 5·99 μm) while increasing sintering rates (pulsed samples were on average 15·5% more dense). The reduced grain growth and increased densification is due to the removal of adsorbed oxygen from the surface of the powder.