Sol-gel method for preparing sub-micrometer level titanium carbide powder material

The invention relates to a sol-gel method for preparing a sub-micrometer level titanium carbide powder material. The preparation method comprises the following steps: evenly mixing common titanium dioxide, phenolic resin, and methanol according to a mole ratio of 1:0.5-0.8:1.9-3.05 at a room temperature, stirring, storing the mixture at a temperature of 70 to 110 DEG C for 2 to 4 hours to obtain a titanium dioxide/phenolic resin precursor; heating the precursor in a high temperature furnace, and storing the precursor at a temperature of 1300 to 1700 DEG C for 2 to 6 hours in an atmosphere of argon so as to obtain sub-micrometer level (200 nm to 1 [mu]m) titanium carbide powder. During the reaction process, phenolic resin is thermally degraded into amorphous carbon with a high activity, amorphous carbon wraps titanium dioxide powder to form a shell-core microscopic structure, thus the contact surface between reactants is greatly increased, and the carbon thermal reduction reactions are promoted. The provided method has the advantages that the raw materials are cheap, the sintering temperature of titanium carbide powder in industrial production is reduced, moreover, the sintering time is short, the technology is simple, and the method can be easily applied to industrial production.