This guide aims to teach the basics of alloy making, which in reality is a complex and technical process. Lucky for you, LCM has created an analogy in order for you to understand the process easily. This analogy is something that you can relate to, making a cake. The guide will take you through the stages of alloy making and highlight the similarities of making a cake. You can also expect to learn the main steps of the production of alloys, things to be mindful of when alloy making from contamination of material to using the wrong ingredients, Environmental Social Governance (ESG), and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).
Alloy making dummies for
A special edition brought to you by Less Common Metals Ltd
Understand the components of alloy making
Learn the key aspects in controlling a furnace
Predictions on the future of alloy making
Table of Contents
1. Understanding alloy making What is an alloy? How are alloys made? What are they used for? Why do we need alloys? The basic process - it's like baking a cake!
2. The components of alloy making
The four main steps to the production of alloys
3. Gettings hands on with alloy making
Things to watch out for / be mindful of
4. How to control the furnace The correct form The right crucible Different types of crucible at LCM
5. Advantages of alloy making
Freedom to create alloys with different properties
Corrosion-resistant Durable parts Weight vs strength
6. Predictions on the future of alloy making
Six predictions on the future of alloy making
Introduction
Alloy making is becoming a crucial part of the mine to magnet supply chain with the green revolution requiring rare earth permanent magnets for wind turbines and electric vehicles.
With the demand of these special alloys it is key that more people are educated about the industry and consider a career in alloy making.
Our operators retain these skills throughout their careers by focussing on melting techniques requiring precision and attention to detail.
About This Book
Alloy making for Dummies, an LCM special edition, is designed to take you through the fundamentals of manufacturing an alloy.
From the skills that are required in the factory to the equipment which helps this process come to life. This guide will highlight the advantages of alloy making and even better, educate you so you are able to better understand the building blocks of how an alloy is made. This is a complex and technical process, but LCM have created an analogy in order for you to understand the process easily. This analogy is something that you can relate to; making a cake. Either you are a keen baker, or you’ve tried it once and failed which means you could both learn how to make an alloy and a cake – it’s a win-win situation. This guide will take you through six stages of alloy making, Environmental Social Governance (ESG) and Personal Protective equipment (PPE) and highlight the similarities with making a cake. You can also expect to learn the four main steps of the production of alloys and things to be mindful of when alloy making from contamination of material to using the wrong ingredients.
1.Understanding alloy making
What is an alloy?
How are alloys made?
Materials are 'joined together' by melting to combine the properties of each element in the new alloy.
An alloy is a combination of two or more metallic elements.
What are they used for?
Why do we need alloys?
Alloys have different uses depending on what metals they are alloyed with. You can find them in various applications across different industries such as healthcare, automotive, aerospace and military.
Alloys are bespoke to the customer to service their particular requirements / applications. For example, alloys could be corrosion resistant, have a need for incredible strength or have key properties for magnet making.
The basic process...
2. Personal protective equipment Make sure you have the correct PPE for the task in hand. Safety always comes first.
1. Raw Material
Weigh all of the raw material out that you require for the alloy. It is important to know quantites.
3. Furnace: heating / melting It's time to load up the furnace and get melting. You need to ensure the mixture is homogeneous. The alloys need to thoroughly mix together so any part of the mixture contains an equal distribution of the component parts. 5. Analysis The next stage is to analyse a sample of the alloy in the laboratory to make sure it's what the customer asked for. Analysis varies from thickness measurements to LECO or ICP-OES.
4. Hydride Plant Refine the mixture into the form your customer has asked for. LCM can supply alloys in lump, flake or powder form.
6. Packing Machine
We pack our materials in vacuum- sealed aluminised bags to protect and preserve them. The bags prevent ingress of moisture and reduce exposure to air, ensuring our products remain as good as the day they were cast.
it's like baking a cake!
Put your apron on as it may get a little messy and don't forget your oven gloves. 2. Personal protective equipment
1. Ingredients
Weigh the ingredients you need for the recipe, this will determine how tasty your cake is and is key for the cooking process.
3. Mixing and baking Mix the ingredients together thoroughly to ensure it is homogenous and bake it in the oven at the right temperature.
4. Presentation stage Are you baking a victoria sponge cake or a cheesecake? The final design of the cake is extremely important.
5. Analysis
6. Package and delivery Once you are happy with the cake it can be carefully packaged and sent to the customer in a way that prevents it going stale.
How does it look and taste? Is it what the customer asked for? Have the ingredients been mixed properly so that they are blended well throughout the cake evenly?
2. The components of alloy making
There are ultimately four main steps to the production of alloys:
Raw material
Mixing and melting
Using an extraction process the raw material is mined from the earth's crust in various locations all over the world, it is then manufactured into powders or metal depending on the application required.
The material in this instance is loaded into a big machine called a strip caster where the metal is melted and mixed together. In this particular process, flake is formed by pouring molten alloy onto a rotating water-cooled copper drum to produce a rapidly cooled product with a specific microstructure.
Form (flake or lump)
HD Furnace (optional)
Some customers would like their product to be manufactured into flake or some prefer lump. It is important to know the form before starting the process as it is dependent on what they want.
The flake can be manufactured into a powder if the customers require this form. The process uses hydrogen at temperature and pressure to transform the flakes into particles within a specific size and density range. This is known as hydrogen decrepitation.
3. Getting hands on with alloy making
Things to watch out for or be mindful of:
Contamination of material It is important to keep your ingredients away from others to ensure there is no risk of contamination which can result in a wasted batch.
Bad ingredients
You wouldn't buy out of date ingredients or damaged goods for baking a cake would you? Using bad ingredients will result in a bad product.
Wrong ingredients If you use the wrong ingredients it can make the process very difficult.
For example, when alloy making, it is important to use the right forms of material, size and shape or it can affect how they mix together when melting.
Think about it, you wouldn't put a slab of chocolate on top of a trifle, you would grate and sprinkle it.
Time
Heat
Timing is crucial. Make sure you don't underbake or overbake the alloy. If you underbake you can risk undissolved materials, and if you overbake you will burn off certain rare earths.
Monitor the heat!
If the alloy is too hot, you risk damaging the material and any mould you are pouring into.
If it's too cool the alloy will solidify and be difficult to cast.
The Importance of ESG
At LCM, all of the raw materials are sourced responsibly and our suppliers complete a declaration form in order to be recognised as a reputable company. The similarity with baking a cake is that the baker may source gluten free or vegan ingredients which provides the customer with a level of assurance. For the process, LCM uses filters to capture the emissions, and temperatures are controlled when using the furnace so energy isn't wasted. When you bake a cake you use an extractor fan in the kitchen and perhaps reduce energy by baking in batches rather than leaving the oven on for a long period of time.
Environmental
Social
Governance
4. How to control the furnace when alloy making
The correct form When alloy-making you need to use the correct form of materials to build a charge in the crucible. It is important to make sure everything fits in the crucible in the correct order as some metal melts slower than others. For example, Iron has a high melting point so it is important to ensure that it is positioned close to the hottest point in the crucible as it takes longer to melt and you need to be mindful of the time constraints. When baking a cake you may want to prepare certain ingredients in order rather than throwing everything together at once. Sometimes it is best to mix the dry and wet ingredients separately to ensure the end mixture is homogenous. The right crucible Different crucibles are made of different materials and this determines how the mixture is being contained in relation to which metals you are melting.
Think about what baking tin the ingredients are being cooked in. You can either buy a nonstick tin or simply use greaseproof paper to make sure the mixture doesn't stick to the sides.
Which one is going to be the best to use for what you are trying to achieve?
Types of crucibles at LCM
Alumina
Tantalum
Magnesium Oxide
Graphite
Al 0 crucibles are the go-to crucible with the majority of LCM production using them. 3 2
MGO crucibles are used over Alumina crucibles when a
Graphite is a bespoke crucible material able to resist the harshest melting conditions. It is however messy and the carbon pick up can be high and
The extremely high melting point of Ta allows good resistance to heat and longevity of use. However the production of Ta crucibles is
higher melting temperature is required.
They offer good slag resistance
MGO can reach a higher operational temperature than Alumina but at the expense of operational life expectancy.
with a great operational lifespan.
expensive and more suited to smaller melts / applications.
unsuitable for most melting.
Slag: By-product of smelting.
5. Advantages of alloy making
The freedom to create alloys with different properties.
Durable parts
Corrosion resistance
In the same way, you can add additives to cakes to make them less resistant to falling apart, you can add alloy elements including chromium and molybdenum. Additives for cakes can come in different forms such as Xtendra Bake Magic, Liquid Glucose, Glycerine and Aspartame sweetener.
Adding a pinch of carbon to iron makes steel stronger.
Just like when you add a pinch of salt or a shot of vanilla essence to your cake mixture, it enhances the flavour.
Weight vs strength
For lightweight and strong alloys, Titanium is added to the mix.
Think about meringues and how you incorporate air into the mixture by whisking egg whites quickly.
In both alloy-making and baking you can influence the mixture in certain ways to achieve the end product you require.
6. Predictions on the future of alloy making
Recycling alloys from urban waste
Rapidly quenched alloys
It is a real possibility that the supply of rare earth elements will eventually run out. Recycling metals and alloys is required to meet the demand of wind turbines and electric vehicles. This will be taken into consideration when building devices, and the design will be altered in order to be recycled. At present, it is difficult to recycle alloys because electronic devices haven't been designed to be dismantled and reused.
Alloys usually take a long time to cool after production, to quicken the process, the operator can rapidly quench the alloy. For example, at LCM, strip cast flake is produced by pouring molten alloy onto a rotating water-cooled copper drum to produce a rapidly cooled product with a specific microstructure.
Different elements for diverse applications
LCM participates in a diverse range of European and UK funded projects focussed on product and process development.
These projects allow LCM to look forward to future technologies and ensure that we continue to participate actively in the European academic, research and development communities.
Mass producing alloys for the green energy sector
Greater availability of rare earth elements
Rare earth alloys are used in permanent magnets for applications in the green energy sector. With the demand on the rise as countries try to hit their net-zero targets, it is inevitable that companies like LCM will be mass producing alloys for the green energy sector.
Rare earth elements are not 'rare', there are many reserves all around the world. they are just difficult to separate. In an ideal world, there will be varied sources of REEs. Aside from recycling, an option could be to refine more critical elements in order to reduce the quantity needed. LCM is involved with EU-funded projects to recycle devices (SUSMAGPRO) and manufacture rare earth free permanent magnets (PASSENGER) .
More effcient and environmentally-friendly melting
You've learnt that LCM uses filters to capture emissions, and temperatures are controlled when using the furnace so energy isn't wasted but this is constantly being looked at and developed.
In the future, we could expect to see wind turbines or solar panels driving energy to furnaces.
Have an enquiry? Email: general@lesscommonmetals.com Phone: 0151-356-3500
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