Arab J Sci Eng (2016) 41:4661–4667
DOI 10.1007/s13369-016-2229-9
RESEARCH ARTICLE - MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
Carburising of Low-Carbon Steel Using Carbon Black
Nanoparticles
Mohsin Ali Raza1 · Husnain Asgar1 · Ayman Abdullah1 · Rafiq Ahmad1 ·
Aqil Inam1 · Faizan Ali Ghauri1
Received: 30 July 2015 / Accepted: 18 May 2016 / Published online: 8 June 2016
© King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals 2016
Abstract Pack carburising is commonly used to increase
wear resistance and impact toughness of low-carbon steels
by increasing carbon content of the surface. Pack carburis-
ing is a time-consuming process which limits its commercial
applications. The aims of present study were to increase the
efficiency of pack carburising process and to decrease the
time of carburising. Pack carburising of low-carbon steel was
carried out by embedding low-carbon steel samples in car-
burising compound consisting of carbon black nanoparticles
as carbonaceous matter and barium carbonate as energiser.
The effect of time of carburising and carburising medium
on microstructure, hardness and case depth of the samples
was investigated. The samples carburised using carbon black
nanoparticles showed higher hardness than the samples car-
burised using acetylene gas or charcoal-based carburising
mixture. The case hardness of low-carbon steel increased
from 140 to 275 HV after just 3 h of carburising in carbon
black nanoparticles-based carburising mixture, which is 44
and 85 % higher than the samples carburised for 3 h using
acetylene gas and charcoal-based carburising mixture.
Keywords Low-carbon steel · Carburising · Hardness ·
Case depth · Microstructure
1 Introduction
Low-carbon steel components or parts such as camshafts or
gears require a combination of hard surface and resistance
B Mohsin Ali Raza
mohsin.ceet@pu.edu.pk
1 ceous matter resulting in the production of carbon monoxide.
Department of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering,
College of Engineering and Emerging Technologies,
University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan
to fracture from impact loading. This is achieved by sub-
jecting steels, prior to usage, to surface hardening treatments
which improve wear resistance of the parts by increasing the
hardness of the surface (case) without appreciably affecting
microstructure and properties of the interior (core) which is
normally soft and tough [1]. One of the such surface hard-
ening techniques is carburising in which carbon is diffused
into the surface of low-carbon steels at temperatures of 815–
955 ◦ C, the temperature range at which austenite is a stable
phase [2].
Pack carburising is based on burying a work piece (low-
carbon steel) in a thick layer of carbon powder and heated
at 815–955 ◦ C for long period of time depending on the
case depth required [3]. Modern carburising techniques use
gaseous sources to introduce carbon into the surface of steel.
Such methods include gas carburising, vacuum carburising
and plasma carburising [3,4]. Pack carburising is considered
as time-consuming process compared with other types of car-
burising process, but it holds its importance when slow cool-
ing of components is required for post-carburising machining
or selective carburising is required [5]. Case depth defined
as the distance from surface to core up to which hardness
remain distinguished from the core. The thickness of case
mainly depends on carburising time, temperature and the
available carbon potential at the surface of the steel. Pro-
longed carburising time results in deeper case depths, and
higher carbon potential results in increased carbon content
of the surface [3].
Pack carburising is conventionally carried out in a car-
burising mixture consisting of charcoal as carbon source and
BaCO3 as an energiser or activator. The reactions involve
decomposition of BaCO3 to CO2 which reacts with carbona-
Carbon monoxide decomposes at metal surface into nascent
carbon and carbon dioxide. The nascent carbon diffuses into
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steel and carbon dioxide immediately reacts with carbona-
ceous matter of carburising mixture to produce fresh carbon
monoxide.
The evolution of carbon monoxide can be enhanced by
energisers [3]. Energiser in carburising mixture is responsible
for increasing the carbon potential (activity) of carburising
medium resulting in higher carbon concentration at the sur-
face of the steel and thus deeper case depths [6]. Okongwu
et al. [6] reported that combination of BaCO3 and marble is
more effective energiser than BaCO3 alone as former gave
the deepest case depths in mild steels. Hassan [7] reported
that 90 wt% charcoal and 10 wt% cow bone made an excel-
lent carburising mixture as it gave maximum case depths as
compared to other mixtures.
Carburising mixture should be rich in carbon. Charcoal
is conventionally employed in pack carburising mixtures for
carbon source. However, other sources such as coal, wood
charcoal and graphite can also be used. Ohize et al. [8] stud-
ied the effect of coal, bone charcoal and wood charcoal on the
mechanical properties of mild steel. They found all of them
are effective carburising materials. Alagbe [9] studied the
effects of graphite, charcoal, palm kernel shell and mixed
carburiser activated with 20 wt% BaCO3 on surface hard-
ening of low-carbon steel. The results revealed that sample
carburised with palm kernel shell had greater hardness and
case depth than those carburised in other media attributed to
higher activation of palm kernel shell on reaction with BaCO3
resulting in faster diffusion of carbon into low-carbon steel.
The authors reported that samples carburised using graphite
carburising medium had higher impact resistance than those
carburised using other media.
The main motive in studying various carbon sources is
to achieve required case depth in shorter times, thus making
pack carburising process more cost-effective. The particle
size of carburising media may influence diffusion of carbon
into steel. Akanji et al. [10] reported that carburising mixture
with smaller particle size increases hardness of carburised
steel. They found that hardness of AISI 1018 steel increased
from 150 to 310 HV with decrease in particle size of carburis-
ing medium from 600 to 212 µm. It is highly likely that CO2
evolved from an activator would react aggressively with small
particle-sized carburising medium producing greater amount
of carbon monoxide. One of the low-cost carbon sources is
carbon black which is formed by incomplete combustion of
gaseous (acetylene) or liquid hydrocarbon (furnace oil). Car-
bon black nanoparticles having sizes in the range of 10–50
nm are commercially used as fillers for rubbers and as adsor-
bent material [11]. Due their high surface area, carbon black
nanoparticles can be excellent carburising medium as they
can react aggressively with CO2 evolved from an activator
enabling faster diffusion of carbon into the steel surface. To
the best of our knowledge, no one has reported use of carbon
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black nanoparticles as carburising medium for pack carburis-
ing of low-carbon steel.
The aim of present work is to perform pack carburis-
ing of low-carbon steel using carbon black nanoparticles as
carburising medium. This study aims to explore effect of
carburising time on the hardness and microstructure of case
and core of low-carbon steel carburised using carbon black
nanoparticles. The low-carbon steel samples carburised using
carbon black nanoparticles are also compared with those car-
burised using charcoal and acetylene gas to find effectiveness
of carbon nanoparticles as carburising media.
2 Experimental
2.1 Carburising Method
The samples of plain carbon steel 1024 having carbon content
ca. 0. 24 wt% were gas and pack carburised. A steel rod with
a diameter of 0. 5” was cut into small samples with a length
of 2”. Prior to carburising, all samples were precisely ground
on a lathe machine to remove adherent oxide layer. For gas
carburising, a sample was placed in the tube furnace through
which acetylene gas (carbon source) was passed along with
argon gas as carrier gas. The temperature was maintained in
the range 900–950 ◦ C, and the flow rate of gases was kept
40 cc/min. The sample was gas carburised for 3 h and then
allowed to cool in the furnace. Pack carburising was done
using charcoal and carbon black nanoparticles as carburising
media. For pack carburising, stainless steel containers (2
diameter and 6 height) were used to pack samples in the car-
burising mixture. One-third of the container was filled with
the carburising mixture, and then low-carbon steel samples
were placed vertically (two-in-one container) on the carburis-
ing mixture. The container was then filled up with remaining
carburising mixture to the top, and the mixture was gently
rammed. The top and sides of the container were coated with
fireclay to avoid combustion of carburising mixture with the
atmospheric oxygen. The containers having samples packed
in carburising mixture were placed in the furnace (Carbolite)
at 900–950 ◦ C. The carburising mixture consisted of 20 wt%
barium carbonate (BaCO3 ) and 80 wt% charcoal or carbon
black nanoparticles. The carbon black nanoparticles (Printex
CB140 U) were obtained from Evonik Degussa GmbH. This
is a gas black, has reported BET surface area of 90 m2 /g and
has an average particle size of 40 nm [11]. Pack carburising
in carbon black nanoparticles was carried out in the temper-
ature range of 900–950 ◦ C for 2, 3, 5 and 9 h. At the end of
certain time, carburising containers were drawn out from the
furnace and cooled to room temperature. After cooling, sam-
ples were retrieved from the carburising mixture by breaking
the clay shell. Pack carburising using charcoal (particle size
ca. 300 µm) was carried out for 3 h to compare its microstruc-
Arab J Sci Eng (2016) 41:4661–4667
Fig. 1 Micrographs of samples carburised using carbon black nanoparticles carburised for 3 h (a core, b case), 5 h (c core, d case) and 9 h (e core,
f case)
ture and hardness with the sample carburised in carbon black
nanoparticles-based mixture.
2.2 Characterisation
The uncarburised and pack-carburised low-carbon steel sam-
ples were prepared for microstructural characterisation. The
samples were ground on SiC papers and polished using dia-
4663
mond paste and lapping oil as lubricant. The polished samples
were etched with Nital solution (2% nitric acid and 98% alco-
hol). Samples were microscopically examined using opti-
cal microscope (Leica, Switzerland). The micro-hardness of
both case and core was obtained using Micro-Vicker hard-
ness tester (Shimadzu, Japan) by applying a load of 2. 94
N for 10 s. The hardness profiles were obtained by taking
measurements at increments of ca. 120 µm.
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Fig. 2 Micrographs of uncarburised low-carbon steel (a core, b case), gas carburised (c core, d case), carburised using charcoal mixture (e core, f
case) and carburised using carbon black nanoparticles (g core, h case) for 3 h

3 Results and Discussion
3.1 Microstructure of Carburised Sample
The optical micrographs of low-carbon steel samples car-
burised using carbon black nanoparticles are presented in
Fig. 1, and micrograph of uncarburised low-carbon steel (as-
received sample) is presented in Fig. 2. As expected, the
microstructure of low-carbon steel (both case and core) con-
sists of ferrite and pearlite phases (Fig. 2a, b). After carburis-
ing in carbon black nanoparticles-based carburising com-
pound, the case was formed which can be seen as black ring

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Fig. 3 Vickers hardness vs
distances from surface profiles
of samples carburised using
carbon black
nanoparticles-based carburising
mixture for 2, 3, 5 and 9 h
in the samples carburised for 3–5 h (Fig. 1). The pearlite
content of core has also increased with carburising time. Fig-
ure 1 shows that the size of indentation mark decreases from
case to core and also decreases with increase in carburising
time, suggesting that the diffusion of carbon into the steel is
dependent on carburising time and that the hardness of case
increases with the increase in carbon content. On the basis of
microstructure, the case depth of samples carburised for 2 and
3 h is 100 and 250 µm, respectively. The case depth decreases
for the samples carburised for 5 and 9 h. This decrease can be
attributed to diffusion of the carbon into the core of steel due
to prolonged carburising. It can be clearly observed from the
micrograph of the samples carburised for 5 h (Fig. 1e, f) that
pearlite content of core is much higher than that of uncar-
burised steel (Fig. 2a, b). Furthermore, the grain coarsening
of this sample has also occurred due to prolonged carburising.
The microstructure of samples carburised in gas and char-
coal is also presented in Fig. 2. The case of (Fig. 2d) gas
carburised sample has lower carbon content than the samples
carburised using charcoal and carbon black nanoparticles-
based compounds. This result suggests that gas carburising
using acetylene gas alone is not effective in increasing the
carbon content of the case. Unlike pack carburising, the gas
carburised sample has coarser grains (Fig. 2c, d). This was
due to the furnace cooling (annealing) of the gas carburised
4665
samples. The fine grains of pack carburised samples were
due to air cooling (outside the furnace).
Comparison of the samples carburised for 3 h in charcoal
and in carbon black nanoparticles-based carburising mixture
shows that sample carburised in carbon black nanoparticles-
based carburising mixture (Fig. 2g, h) has much higher case
depth (ca. 250 µm) and higher carbon content than the sample
carburised in charcoal-based carburising mixture (Fig. 2e, f).
The comparison clearly suggests that more carbon diffuses
into steel when carbon black nanoparticles-based carburising
mixture was used as compared to charcoal-based carburising
mixture.
3.2 Micro-hardness
Carburising increases hardness of low-carbon steel. Low-
carbon steel used in this study has hardness of 130–140 HV.
The samples carburised using carbon black nanoparticles for
the period of 2, 3, 5 and 9 h have case hardnesses of 181, 275,
265 and 285 HV, respectively, measured at a distance of ca.
120 µm from the surface (Fig. 3). The appreciable shift in
hardness on hardness profile curves was used to define case
depths for all samples. This was found to be 466, 776 µm
and 1 mm for the samples carburised for 2, 3 and 5 h, respec-
tively (Fig. 5). The result confirms that case depth increases
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Fig. 4 Vickers hardness versus distances from surface (mm) profiles
of samples carburised for 3 h using carbon black nanoparticles-based
carburising mixture, charcoal mixture and acetylene gas
Fig. 5 Comparison of case depths of samples carburised using carbon
black nanoparticles (CB), charcoal and acetylene gas
with increase in carburising time. The hardness profile for a
sample carburised for 9 h is different compared with those
carburised for shorter time as can be seen from unusual data
points in the curve (Fig. 3). Overall, for this sample the hard-
ness of case and core seems to be quite similar (ca. 290 HV)
which is attributed to the diffusion of carbon deep into the
core resulting in an overall increase in carbon content of steel
as confirmed by microstructural examination of carburised
sample (Fig. 1g, h).
The case depth varied with varying parameters, i.e. car-
burising medium and carburising time. Figure 4 presents
comparison of hardness profiles of the samples carburised
for 3 h using gas, charcoal and carbon black nanoparticles.
The case hardness of samples carburised using acetylene,
pack carburised using charcoal and pack carburised using
carbon black nanoparticles is 190, 148 and 275 HV, and
their corresponding case depths are 645, 468 and 776 µm,
respectively (Fig. 5). Although sufficient case depths are
achieved from three carburising sources, the higher hardness
of case obtained from samples carburised using carbon black
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Arab J Sci Eng (2016) 41:4661–4667
nanoparticles-based carburising mixture clearly suggests that
carbon black nanoparticles are very effective carbon source
and offer faster and greater diffusion of carbon into steel. As
mentioned in Sect. 1, the higher diffusion of carbon from car-
bon black nanoparticles is attributed to higher surface area of
carbon black which allowed activator to react more actively
with carbon black nanoparticles.
4 Conclusion
The present study demonstrates that pack carburising of low-
carbon steel carried out using carbon black nanoparticles-
based carburising mixture results in higher diffusion of car-
bon into steel than charcoal-based carburising mixture or
acetylene gas. The surface hardness of low-carbon steel car-
burised using carbon black nanoparticles-based carburising
mixture increased from 140 to 275 HV after 3 h of carburising
treatment which is significantly higher than that achieved for
a sample carburised using charcoal-based carburising mix-
ture. Higher case depths (776 µm for a sample carburised for
3 h) were obtained for the samples carburised using carbon
black-based carburising mixture than the samples carburised
using charcoal or acetylene gas. The case depths increased
with increasing time of carburising, reaching to ca. 1 mm for
a sample carburised for 5 h using carbon black nanoparticle-
based carburising mixture. The study reveals that much acti-
vated carbon source such as carbon black nanoparticles can
increase carbon content of low-carbon steel in relatively short
times.
Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank University of the
Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan, for providing financial support to carry out
this research work.
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