Metallic tantalum powder is manufactured by reducing tantalum oxide (Ta2O5) with magnesium gas at 1,073–1,223 K in a reactor under argon gas. The high thermodynamic stability of magnesium oxide makes the reduction reaction from tantalum oxide into tantalum powder possible. The microstructure after the reduction reaction has the form of a mixture of tantalum and magnesium oxide, and the latter could be entirely eliminated by dissolving in weak hydrochloric acid. The powder size in SEM microstructure for the tantalum powder increases after acid leaching in the range of 50–300 nm, and its internal crystallite sizes are observed to be 11.5 to 24.7 nm with increasing reduction temperatures. Moreover, the optimized reduction temperature is found to be 1,173 K as the minimum oxygen concentration is approximately 1.3 wt.%.

In this research, magnesium powder was prepared by gas atomizing. Refinement behaviors of magnesium powder produced under different conditions were investigated using a mechanical milling (attrition milling) process. Analyses were performed to assess the characterization and comparison of milled powder with different steel ball sizes and milling times. The powders were analyzed by field emission scanning electron microscope, apparent density and powder fluidity. The particle morphology of the Mg powders changed from spherical particles of feed metals to irregular oval particles, then plate type particles, with an increasing milling time. Because of the HCP structure, deformation occurs due to the existence of the easily breakable C-axis perpendicular to the base, which results in producing plate-type powders. An increase in ball size and the impact energy of the magnesium powder maximizes the effect of refinement. Furthermore, it is possible to improve the apparent density and fluidity according to the smoothness of the surface of the initial powder.

In this study, in order to increase surface ability of hardness and corrosion of magnesium alloy, anodizingand sealing with nano-diamond powder was conducted. A porous oxide layer on the magnesium alloy was successfullymade at 85℃ through anodizing. It was found to be significantly more difficult to make a porous oxide layer in themagnesium alloy compared to an aluminum alloy. The oxide layer made below 73℃ by anodizing had no porous layer.The electrolyte used in this study is DOW 17 solution. The surface morphology of the magnesium oxide layer wasinvestigated by a scanning electron microscope. The pores made by anodizing were sealed by water and aqueous nano-diamond powder respectively. The hardness and corrosion resistance of the magnesium alloy was increased by the anod-izing and sealing treatment with nano-diamond powder.

Zr-Ti alloy powders were successfully synthesized by magnesium thermal reduction of metal chlorides. The evaporated and mixed gasses of were injected to liquid magnesium and the chloride components were reduced by magnesium leading to the formation of . The released Zr and Ti atoms were then condensed to particle forms inside the mixture of liquid magnesium and magnesium chloride, which could be dissolved fully in post process by 1~5% HCl solution at room temperature. By the fraction-control of individually injected and gasses, the final compositions of produced alloy powders were changed in the ranges of Zr-0 wt.%~20 wt.%Ti and their purity and particle size were about 99.4% and the level of several micrometers, respectively.

In this research, the refinement behavior of the coarse magnesium powders fabricated by gas atomization was investigated as a function of milling time using a short duration high-energy ball milling equipment, which produces fine powders by means of an ultra high-energy within a short duration. The microstructure, hardness, and formability of the powders were investigated as a function of milling time using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, Vickers micro-hardness tester and magnetic pulsed compaction. The particle morphology of Mg powders changed from spherical particles of feed metals to irregular oval particles, then platetype particles, with increasing milling time. Due to having HCP structure, deformation occurs due to the existence of the easily breakable C-axis perpendicular to the base, resulting in producing plate-type powders. With increasing milling time, the particle size increased until 5 minutes, then decreased gradually reaching a uniform size of about 50 micrometer after 20 minutes. The relative density of the initial power was 98% before milling, and mechanically milled powder was 92~94% with increase milling time (1~5 min) then it increased to 99% after milling for 20 minutes because of the change in particle shapes.

Magnesium and its alloys are attractive as light weight structural/functional materials for high performance application in automobile and electronics industries due to their superior physical properties. In order to obtain high quality products manufactured by the magnesium powders, it is important to control and understand the densification behavior of the powders. The effect of the sheath surrounding the magnesium powders on the plastic deformation and densification behavior during equal channel angular pressing was investigated in the study by experimental and the finite element methods. A modified version of Lee-Kim's plastic yield criterion, notably known as the critical relative density model, was applied to simulate the densification behavior of magnesium powders. In addition, a new approach that extracts the mechanical characteristics of both the powder and the matrix was developed. The model was implemented into the finite element method, with which powder compaction under equal channel angular pressing was simulated.

Numerical simulations of the powder extrusion need an appropriate pressure-dependent constitutive model for densification modeling of the magnesium powders. The present research investigated the effect of representative powder yield function of the critical relative density model. We could obtain reasonable physical properties of pure magnesium powders using cold isostatic pressing. The proposed densification model was implemented into the finite element code. The finite element analysis was applied to simulation of powder extrusion of pure magnesium powder in order to investigate the densification and processing load at room temperature.

Carbon was known to be one of effective additives which can improve the flux pinning of at high magnetic fields. In this study, glycerin was selected as a chemical carbon source for the improvement of critical current density of . In order to replace some of boron atoms by carbon atoms, the boron powder was heat-treated with liquid glycerin. The glycerin-treated boron powder was mixed with an appropriate amount of magnesium powder to composition and the powder pallets were heat treated at for 30 min in a flowing argon gas. It was found that the superconducting transition temperature of prepared using glycerin-treated boron powder was 36.6 K, which is slightly smaller than (37.1 K) of undoped . The critical current density of was higher than that of undoped and the improvement effect was more remarkable at higher magnetic fields. The , decrease and increase associated with the glycerin treatment for boron powder was explained in terms of the carbon substitution to boron site.