Production of Tungsten Carbide Powder

Tungsten carbide powder is the main raw material to produce tungsten carbide products. Some factors may purchase tungsten carbide powder directly, and some may recycle from others. Tungsten carbide powder is not found directly in nature. They are produced by a series of procedure. In this article, the production of tungsten carbide powder will be a brief introduction.

Production

Tungsten carbide contains an equal amount of tungsten and carbon. To produce tungsten carbide, tungsten trioxide should be hydrogenated and reduced first. In this process, we can get tungsten powder and liquid water. Then the tungsten powder and the carbon will be pressed under outside pressure at an equal mole ratio. The pressed block will be put on the graphite pan and heated to more than 1400℃ in an induction furnace with a hydrogen stream. With the increase of the temperature, 2 moles of tungsten will react with 1mole of carbon and produce the W2C. And then the equal tungsten and carbon will react and the tungsten carbide will be produced. The former reaction happens earlier than the latter one because the temperature for the former reaction is lower. At this moment, there are excessive W, W2C, and WC existing in the furnace. They will react under higher temperatures. After the process is finished, we can obtain tungsten carbide powder.

The main chemical reaction is as follows:

WO3 + 3H2 → W + 3H2O

2W + C = W2C

W + C = WC

Storage

Tungsten carbide powder is better to be kept in vacuum packing and stored in a cool and dry room.

Application

Tungsten carbide powder is used to be manufactured tungsten carbide products. Tungsten carbide powder, mixed with a certain proportion of binders will be shaped and sintered into different tungsten carbide products to be applied in different applications. Tungsten carbide powder can be made into tungsten carbide buttons for mining usage, tungsten carbide studs for HPGR, tungsten carbide rods for manufacturing end mills, and tungsten carbide burr to cut and mill other materials.

From this article, we can know the production of tungsten carbide powder, which is the raw material of many tungsten carbide products and tungsten alloys. So suitably storing tungsten carbide powder is vital to ensure the tungsten carbide products can keep their performances.

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