Mechanical comminution (or milling) is the most widely used method of powder production for hard metals and oxides. Secondary milling of oxide-reduced, atomized, or electrolytic powders is also a very common and economical practice.

Virtually any metal can be made into powder form. There are three principal methods by which metallic powders are commercially produced, each of which involves energy input to increase the surface area of the metal. The methods are (1) atomization, (2) chemical, and (3) electrolytic.

Powder metallurgy is a fabrication technique that involves three major processing stages: (i) production of metal powder, (ii) compaction and shaping of the powder, and (iii) consolidation and fusing of the powder into a solid metal component under high temperature and pressure.

Perhaps the most important variants are air atomisation, inert gas atomisation (IGA) and VIGA.

1. 1 Air Atomisation. Air atomisation is where both atomisation and melting are carried out in air.
2. 2 Inert Gas Atomisation.
3. 3 Vacuum Inert Gas Atomisation.

i) There are numerous ways for powder production which can be categorized as follows. 1) Mechanical methods of powder production: i) Chopping or Cutting ii) Abrasion methods iii) Machining methods iv) Milling v) Cold-stream Process.

Sintering facilitated the bonding action between the individual powder particles and increases the strength of the final part. It is not the process of producing the powders. Methods of powder production: There are several ways of producing metal powders, and most of them can be produced by more than one method.

In the bonding process, powder particles are first compressed to the desired shape, then heated (sintered) at a temperature below the melting point of the metal or, in the case of an alloy, of the metal with the highest melting point. Metal powders are produced by either chemical or mechanical means.

Plating, coating, deburring, welding, furnace brazing, heat treating, and steam treating are among the secondary operations that are used successfully in the process of fabricating finished PM parts.

Bulk processes include rolling, forging, extrusion and wire and bar drawing. Sheet Metalworking: Sheet metalworking processes are performed on metal sheets, strips and coils having a high surface area to volume ratio. These operations use a punch and die to form the workpiece.

Powder Characterization These methods include crushing (for brittle material), machining, mechanical pulverization, slotting, electrolysis, atomization of liquid metal using water, nitrogen, argon, or a combination of these, and reduction of metal oxides in hydrogen or using carbon.

Atomization: Atomization is the method most frequently used metals having low melting points, such as tin, lead, Zn, Cd and Al. As the liquid metal is forced through a small orifice, a steam of compressed air causes the metal to disintegrate and solidify into finely divided particles.

This article provides a discussion on the process descriptions, processing conditions, and processing variables of the most common chemical methods for metal powder production. These methods include oxide reduction, precipitation from solution, and thermal decomposition.

The milling process is commonly used for production of metallic powder. It is carried out by using equipments such as ball mill, impact mill, eddy mill, disk mill, vortex mill, etc. Milling and grinding process can easily be employed for brittle, tougher, malleable, ductile and harder metals to pulverize them.

The first step in the overall powder metallurgy (PM) process is making metal powders. There are four main processes used in powder production: solid-state reduction, atomization, electrolysis, and chemical. In solid-state reduction, selected ore is crushed, typically mixed with carbon, and passed through a continuous furnace.

Solid state reduction is also used for the production of refractory metal powders, using hydrogen as the reducing agent, and for the production of specialist iron powders by the reduction of mill scale (again using hydrogen).