Powder Metallurgy - Basic Information

Powder metallurgy was formerly known as lost art. Not like clay or other stoneware materials, the skills in molding and firing useful and ornamental metallic objects were seldom applied in the early phases of history.

Metal powders like gold, copper and also bronze and many other powdered oxides specifically iron oxide which are used as colors, were utilized for ornamental uses in ceramic objects, used as base in paints and inks and also in cosmetics since the start of history. Powdered gold has been used in illustrating several manuscripts in the early times. The procedure in producing the outdoor powder coating factory gold was not known, but it was possible that lots of powder were taken through granulation after the melting of the metal. Low dissolving points as well as resistance to corrosion favored the procedures, particularly in production of gold powder.

The utilization of these fine particles for pigments or decorative purposes is not a real powder metallurgy, since the important features of the current art are the creation of powder and consolidation into the hard form by means of putting force and heat at the warmth below the liquefying point of the main element.

The two principal techniques utilized to shape and consolidate the ceramics or powder metallurgy are sintering and injection of metal molding. Current improvements have possibly done to make use of speedy manufacturing techniques that use metal powder. Due to this method the powder is not sintered but melted so better mechanical power can be attained.

The Ion Beam Enhanced Deposition Coating Process For Pharmaceutical Tooling

The Ion beam enhanced deposition (IBED) process is a new metal coating process that can be used to effectively coat tableting punches and dies with a variety of hard, wear and corrosion resistant coatings. IBED coating technology is ideal for use on tableting tooling and has two main advantages over conventional metal coating methods:

1.) IBED coatings can be applied at temperatures that do not exceed 150 degrees Fahrenheit, thus maintaining the original integrity of the tooling, including exact dimensions and bulk hardness.
2.) IBED coatings replicate the tooling's original surface finish exactly, thus eliminating the need for post-coating repolishing.

Unlike conventional electro- chrome plating or high-temperature china powder coating processes, IBED is entirely a physical process (chrome plating and vacuum coating are chemical and thermal processes, respectively). Ion beam enhanced deposition processing combines the benefits of thermal diffusion processing and conventional coating technologies because the coating atoms first penetrate into the substrate to form a case layer in the surface, and then are grown out from this case layer as a thick coating. Driven in kinetically instead of thermally, IBED coatings are "ballistically bonded" to the substrate, thus forming a metallurgical bond that is much stronger than a mechanical or chemical bond.

The IBED coating process is implemented by the simultaneous bombardment of a growing coating with an independently controllable beam of energetic atomic particles. The growing coating is generated either by vacuum evaporation or ion beam sputtering. The independent beam of particles consists primarily of charged atoms (ions) extracted at high energy from a broad beam ion source. Beams of either inert species (Ne+, Ar+, or Kr+) or reactive species (N+ or O+) can be utilized for the process.