“It is becoming clear that powder-metallurgical (PM) high-performance materials are crucial in shaping the future development of growth industries such as energy generation, environment, healthcare, electronics and transport,” comments Dr. Lorenz Sigl, Head of Innovation Services at Plansee SE. The Plansee Seminar will focus on PM products made from refractory metals, such as tungsten and molybdenum, and hard materials, such as hard metals and ceramics. PM products are made by molding and compressing metal and ceramic powders. Here is an overview of the key topics covered at the Plansee Seminar:

Energy generation. The possibility of using nuclear fusion to produce unlimited amounts of energy has fascinated whole generations of researchers. To drain off the heat from the fusion reactor, heat exchangers made from high-performance materials, such as tungsten and fiber-reinforced carbon, will be needed. These materials have to withstand extreme temperatures of over 2,000 degrees Celsius. “Nuclear fusion research gives us a valuable insight into how our materials perform under extreme conditions – and has shown us how we can use processing and joining technologies to make them able to withstand these,” says Dr. Sigl.
The PM industry also plays a key role in the development and use of key components in high-temperature fuel cells, and intermetallic compounds for gas turbines – which enables power plants to operate at significantly higher temperatures, thereby increasing efficiency.
In photovoltaic applications, molybdenum is becoming increasingly popular as a coating for thin-film solar cells.

Environment. A new ceramic joining technology is being developed, which will enable the ceramic to be attached to the substrate. This will make possible cost-effective and efficient new solutions to separate carbon dioxide from combustion gases.
New hard-metal tools are being used for dry machining, which eliminate the use of environmentally harmful coolants and solvents.
Rapid Manufacturing will lead to greater savings in energy and raw materials, as it enables complex metal components to be made in the exact sizes required by the customer – both quickly and at a low cost.
Diminishing supplies of raw materials, long-term rises in raw material costs, and increasing demand for rare metals such as molybdenum, tungsten, niobium and zirconium mean that it is becoming ever more important to recycle these metals.

Healthcare. Materials made from titanium and ceramic help speed up recovery time after hip or knee surgery. The porosity of these materials helps the bone cells to grow into the implant and to create a stable interface between the implant and the bone.

Electronics. Within the consumer and industrial electronics industries, there is an increased demand for diamond composite materials for thermal management purposes: the miniaturization of electronic components means that a large amount of heat is generated in small spaces, and this needs to be dispersed quickly.
Molybdenum is already used as a coating in LCD TFT flatscreens, and the powder metallurgy industry is looking at ways to help make the production of flatscreen monitors more cost effective and to increase the usability of the coating materials.
There has been encouraging progress recently in efforts to use tungsten for field emission applications, such as ultra-flat, luminous displays.

Automotive. Within the automotive industry, a key aim is to improve the quality and productivity of machining wheel rims, engine blocks and crankshafts. Improved hard metals and new hard-material coatings make machining tools even more effective and longer-lasting. New wear-protection coatings are becoming thinner and better performing – they are less than a tenth of the thickness of a strand of human hair, yet extend tool life by a factor of between five and ten.

Core properties. PM materials are often essential to giving end products the desired properties. Computerized modelling and simulation will become more and more important for developing new materials with improved properties. Dr. Sigl comments: “Progress is only possible if we understand both processes and material properties not merely in the context of complete components, but all the way down to the atomic level.”

Media contact

Dénes Széchényi
Member of the Plansee Seminar Organizing Committee
Head of Internal Communications at the Plansee Group

PLANSEE SE
Metallwerk-Plansee-Str. 71 – 6600 Reutte – Austria
Tel.: +43-5672-600-2243 – Mobile: +43-664-8 15 25 98
denes.szechenyi@plansee.com