Study on the Anti-Poison Performance of Al–Y–P Master Alloy for Impurity Ca in Aluminum Alloys

In this article, the anti-poison performance of novel Al–6Y–2P master alloy for impurity Ca in hypereutectic Al–Si alloys was investigated in detail. According to the microstructural analysis, it can be found that the primary Si and eutectic Si particles could be relatively modified and refined. In order to investigate the influence mechanism of Ca on the limited refinement performance of Al–6Y–2P master alloy, types of Al–xSi–2Ca–3Y–1P (x = 0, 6, 12, 18, and 30) alloys were prepared. It is observed that Ca takes the form of more stable Ca3P2 compounds by reacting with YP, and the surface of Ca3P2 particles are unsmooth, and even some have wrinkles in Al Al–2Ca–3Y–1P alloy. With the increase of Si content in Al–xSi–2Ca–3Y–1P (x = 6, 12, 18 and 30) systems, the multi-encapsulation structures, i.e., the phosphide (AlP and YP), hexagonal Al2Si2Ca, the Al3Si2Y2 or primary Si from inside to outside in order were examined.The excapsulation of YP and AlP caused by Al2Si2Ca might be the reason for the limited refinement effect of Al–6Y–2P master alloy for hypereutectic Al–18Si alloys.