The conventional debinding process in metal injection molding is very long time-consuming and unfriendly environmental method. Especially, in such a case of injection molded parts from hard and fine metal powder, such as WC-Co, an extremely long period of time is necessary in the conventional slow binder removal process. On the other hand, supercritical debinding is thought to be the effective method which is appropriate to eliminate the aforementioned inconvenience in the prior art. The supercritical fluid has high diffusivity and density, it can penetrate quickly into the inside of the green metal bodies, and extract the binder. In this paper, super-critical debinding is compared with wicking debinding process. Wax-based binder system is used in this study. The binder removal rate in supercritical have been measured at , 75 in the pressure range from 20 MPa to 28 MPa. Pores and cracks in silver bodies after sintering were observed using SEM When the super-critical debinding was carried out at 75, almost all the wax (about 70 wt% of binder) was removed in 2 hours under 28 MPa and 2.5 hours under 25 MPa.

The dispersion of WC grains Into the interior of an eutectic liquid has been studied by superimposing the eutectic WC-85wt.%Co liquid on the top surface of presintered WC-l0wt.%Co alloy compacts. The heavy WC grains diffused into the interior of liquid from the WC-l0wt.%Co compacts. According to increasing the treating temperatures and times, the dispersion distance from WC-l0wt.%Co substrates increased. The fine WC grains diffused into the liquid faster than the coarse WC grains. The high microstructural stability of WC-Co alloys having the heavier WC grains dispersed in a lighter Co-rich liquid was attributed to Brownian motion of WC grains in liquid. The motion of WC grains in the liquid appears to be same with the colloid(the disperse phase) in a dispersing medium. The dihedral angle of 0 degree of WC-Co at. toy seems one of key parameters, which enables the WC-Co alloys to have high structural stability without settling the WC grains during liquid phase sintering.

The effect of vacuum annealing on the oxidation behavior of milled WC-15%Co powder mixture has been studied. A cobalt component in the milled powder mixture was oxidized preferentially above 175 in air. The specimens showed a steady increase in weight at 175 but did constant weight followed by rapid increase in specimen weight at the beginning above 20. Oxidation of the milled powder mixture was significantly suppressed by vacuum annealing at 30 for 10 h. Suppression of oxidation by vacuum annealing and different oxidation behaviors of the milled powder mixture between 175 and 20, were attributed to removal of strain energy stored in the cobalt powder during vacuum annealing or oxidation treatment above 20. The role of stored strain energy on oxidation of milled WC-15%Co powder mixture was proved by X-ray diffraction method and differential thermal analysis.