Powder Metallurgy
Using pressure to achieve unique material properties

Powder metallurgy is a special field in metallurgy. It is different from melting metallurgy, which produces typical metals such as aluminium or copper, and metal alloys such as bronze or steel.

The term ‘powder metallurgy’ encompasses the processes in which powdered metallic raw materials are processed into metallic semi-finished or finished products by the application of pressure at temperatures below their normal melting temperature.

The initial raw materials required are pure metals or alloys in powder form, whereby the maximum powder grain size suitable is 0.6 mm. The process used to produce the metal powder has a great influence on the specific properties of the end products. In addition to chemical reduction processes, centrifugal, atomisation, carbonyl and electrolytic processes are also used.

From powder to solid material

The typical manufacturing process used in powder metallurgy to produce solid semi-finished or finished products from metal powders is a combination of sintering and pressing at temperatures below the melting point. In the meantime, however, a broad range of innovative processes have emerged.

For the production of its powder-metallurgical copper-based high-temperature materials, CEP Freiberg uses the RMMA (= Reaction Milling/Mechanical Alloying) manufacturing process. This is a cold manufacturing process for powder-metallurgical materials in which pure copper powder is intensively ground together with alloying additives and dispersion formers in a ball mill. The result is a granulate of dispersion-hardened ODS copper, which is then processed into semi-finished products (bars, tubes, wire) using different extrusion processes.

Materials with radically different properties

Powder metallurgy makes it possible to produce certain semi-finished and end products by means of a shortened technological path, which is, thus, more efficient. Modern powder-metallurgical materials are also possessed of material and processing properties that materials produced via typical melting metallurgy cannot match at all.

For example, copper-based high-temperature materials from CEP Freiberg are unusual in combining electrical and thermal conductivity with high-temperature resistance (i.e., their ‘CT’ property).

If you have any questions about powder metallurgy and the resulting high-temperature materials, please do not hesitate to contact us at CEP Freiberg. Simply call or send us a message.