Fabrication of fine-grained spherical tungsten powder by radio frequency (RF) inductively coupled plasma spheroidization combined with jet milling

Abstract

Fine-grained spherical tungsten powder with particle size from 6μm to 11μm has been fabricated by a well-designed method with two simple steps. A pretreatment of tungsten powder was carried out in the first step. Complete dispersion, effective classification and favorable shape modification have been achieved by jet milling process. Accordingly, monodisperse tungsten powders with narrow particle size distribution were obtained. On the basis of the existing calculation and simulation results, plasma spheroidization parameters have been optimized. Thus, fine-grained spherical tungsten powder with narrow particle size distribution has been prepared by subsequent radio frequency (RF) inductively coupled plasma spheroidization. Furthermore, the presented method can be useful in fabricating spherical tungsten powder of different particle size with narrow particle size distribution as well as for process control in large-scale continuous production.