STUDY ON PREPARING ZIRCONIUM POWDER BY METAL-THERMIC METHOD USING CALCIUM

Abstract: Zirconium metal, especially in the state of powder, is a material that is widely used in lots of industrial fields. The consumption of zirconium metal for nuclear industry is 90 % of the total of zirconium that is produced in the world. The left (10%) is used in different non-nuclear industry fields such as metallurgy, chemistry, and national defense. The reported results comprise: 1) A system of equipments made for metal-thermic reduction was well sealed to be able to reduce the pressure of the system to 10-2 atmosphere at 900-10000C. This system unit can give the yield of 100-300g/batch. 2) A technological procedure for reducing zirconium dioxide by metal-thermic method using calcium was determined in order to obtain Zirconium metal power which had efficiency 95-98% ( meet the specifications according to standards in the world and General Department for Defense Industry, the Ministry of Defense.: zirconium content is 98.51%, total of damaging element content is less than 2%, self-combust temperature is lower than 2000C, meant particle size is 4.891µm, particle size distribution range is from 0.06 to 19 µm). A very important part of the know-how that is vacuum distilling refinement of metal powder at 8000C in the high-vacuum refining furnace VRS-15G was successfully employed to obtain high quality zirconium powder. The obtained products have been used to prepare pyrotechnic MC1 for detonator fus