Deep decarburization of molybdenum and tungsten powders by wet hydrogen

Abstract

The control of residual carbon content is an urgent problem to be solved for the preparations of molybdenum and tungsten powders by method of carbothermic reduction of their oxides. In this paper, finer Mo (W) powder with a low residual carbon content was prepared by a two-step reduction process consisting of carbothermal pre-reduction of MoO3 (WO3) at 1050 °C and following deep hydrogen reduction. During the deep hydrogen reduction process, with the increases of hydrogen reduction temperature and dew point, the residual carbon contents of the finally prepared Mo and W powders gradually decreased, while the particle sizes of Mo and W powders gradually increased. The lowest residual carbon and oxygen contents of Mo and W powders obtained after hydrogen reduction at 1100 °C with the hydrogen dew point of 41 °C were 0.007 wt% (carbon content) and 0.104 wt% (oxygen content), as well as 0.010 wt% and 0.086 wt%, respectively. In addition, the mean particle sizes of them were 1032 nm and 998 nm under this condition, respectively.