Thermal stability of amorphous Mg₅₀Ni₅₀ alloy produced by mechanical alloying

Amorphous Mg₅₀Ni₅₀ alloy was produced by mechanical alloying (MA) of the elemental powders Mg and Ni using a SPEX 8000D mill. The alloyed powders were microstructurally characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD). The thermal transformation of amorphous Mg₅₀Ni₅₀ into stable intermetallics (Mg₅₀Ni₅₀ → remaining amorphous + Mg₂Ni → Mg₂Ni + MgNi₂) was analyzed using the Kissinger and isoconversional methods based on the non-isothermal differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) experiments. The apparent activation energies (E_a) and the transformation diagrams, temperature-time-transformation (T-T-T) and temperature-heating rate-transformation (T-HR-T), were obtained for both processes. A good agreement was observed between the calculated transformation curves and the experimental data, which verifies the reliability of the method utilized.