Production of substantially spherical metal powers

摘要

A method (100) for producing a substantially spherical metal powder is described. A particulate source metal includes a primary particulate and has an average starting particle size (110). The particulate source metal is optionally ball milled and mixed with a binder in a solvent to form a slurry (120). The slurry is granulated to form substantially spherical granules (130), wherein each granule comprises an agglomeration of particulate source metal in the binder. The granules are debinded (140) at a debinding temperature to remove the binder from the granules forming debinded granules. The debinded granules are at least partially sintered (150) at a sintering temperature such that particles within each granule fuse together to form partially or fully sintered solid granules. The granules can then be optionally recovered to form a substantially spherical metal powder (160).