Towards Sustainable and Environmentally Friendly Metallic Powder Production

Intermetallic Fe-Al compounds have become very interesting materials due to their properties, such as good corrosion resistance, high-temperature resistance, high resistance/weight ratios, creep resistance, good wear resistance, and low cost, including some applications where they could replace stainless steels. However, their low ductility at room temperature has limited their use. One of the solutions is to generate powders of these intermetallics and press them in the wished form. Current production methods of this type of powders are very high energy-consuming, polluting, and harmful for handling for human beings. Because of the environmental situation in our planet, it is necessary to develop more environmentally friendly processes, which have lower energy requirements. Therefore, a comparison of a novel water vapor-based FeAl powder manufacture process with Mechanical Alloying (MA), one of the most commonly used processes to produce this type of powder is made in this work. This comparison aims to focus on the advantages of the novel process concerning MA, the last one, considering environmental as well as energy criteria.

Microstructural and lipid composition changes in milk fat globules during milk powder manufacture

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of milk powder processing conditions (pasteurisation, homogenisation and spray-drying) on the microstructure and composition of fat globules in cow milk.

Powder Metallurgy

This chapter covers the basic steps of the powder metallurgy process, including powder manufacture, powder blending, compacting, and sintering. It identifies important powder characteristics such as particle size, size distribution, particle shape, and purity. It compares and contrasts mechanical, chemical, electrochemical, and atomizing processes used in powder production, discusses powder treatments, and describes consolidation techniques along with secondary operations used to obtain special properties or improve dimensional precision. It also discusses common defects such as ejection cracks, density variations, and microlaminations.