Process for producing spheroidized powder from feedstock materials
Assignee6K Inc.
InventorsSunil Bhalchandra Badwe, Scott Joseph Turchetti, Makhlouf Redjdal
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Abstract
Disclosed herein are embodiments of methods, devices, and assemblies for processing feedstock materials using microwave plasma processing. Specifically, the feedstock materials disclosed herein pertains to scrap materials, dehydrogenated or non-hydrogenated feed material, recycled used powder, and gas atomized powders. Microwave plasma processing can be used to spheroidize and remove contaminants. Advantageously, microwave plasma processed feedstock can be used in various applications such as additive manufacturing or powdered metallurgy (PM) applications that require high powder flowability.
Claims11
A method for manufacturing a spheroidized powder from powder previously manufactured from a gas atomization process, the method comprising:
- introducing powder previously manufactured from a gas atomization process into a microwave plasma torch, the powder previously manufactured from a gas atomization process having a median aspect ratio of 2:1 or greater;
- and
- melting and spheroidizing the powder previously manufactured from a gas atomization process within the microwave plasma torch to form spheroidized powder particles having a different median particle size and a smaller particle size distribution from a median particle size and a median particle size distribution of the powder previously manufactured from a gas atomization process, and having a median sphericity of 0.91 or greater.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.