Metal Powder Manufacture

We have over 20 years experience in the production of metal powder by gas atomisation.

The processing equipment is flexible allowing the production of fine or coarser powders in a wide range of metal systems. Powder can also be processed by mechanical alloying, a high energy, solid state ball milling process.

Resources and Facilities:

• Melting under inert atmosphere
• Atomisation with inert gas
• Low oxygen, high purity spherical powder
• Fine or coarse powder
• Reactive alloys can be processed
• Small batch size
• No cross contamination between runs
• Liquidus temperatures up to 1500°C are processed.

Mechanical Alloying

• Suited to alloys difficult or impossible to manufacture by casting or atomisation
• Precise, reproducible compositional control
• Microstructural homogeneity
• Ceramic reinforced MMCs with enhanced hardness and wear resistance.

Powder can be produced on a toll basis or as part of a larger project. Examples of powders produced in recent years include alloys of aluminium, silicon, iron, nickel, copper, zinc, germanium, selenium, silver, indium, tin, antimony, tellurium, gold, lead and a wide range of rare earth based alloys e.g. FeNdB, CoSm, TbFe, LaNi5, Al-Er, Ce-Ni. Applications include feedstock for plasma and thermal spraying, nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries, rare earth permanent magnets, targets for sputter coating, solders and brazes, fine powder for metal injection moulding (MIM), catalysts, hydrogen storage etc.