Development and applications of ultrafine aluminium powders

Over the last 20 years or so, a variety of new technologies has been developed to produce sub-micron powders. Among the products attracting interest is nanoaluminium which is being evaluated in specialist propulsion and exothermic end-uses. This paper examines the advances made in ‘nanopowder’ production in the context of the existing aluminium powder industry where finest commercial grades have a median size of ~6 μm (one or two orders of magnitude coarser than nanopowders) and which today supplies the markets being targeted by nanopowders with coarser, but effective products. Are there genuine market opportunities for nanoaluminium and if so, how will they be produced? One the one hand there are the novel nanopowder production methods which are high yielding but generally slow and costly, while on the other, there is the very fine fraction from conventional atomising routes which generate a very low yield of sub-micron powder but which nevertheless can translate into a meaningful rate as part of the bulk production. Can conventional routes ever hope to make sufficient volumes of nanopowders cost effectively and which will be the favoured routes in future? Moreover, what of the ‘ultrafine’ size range (~0.5–5 μm) which is of more immediate potential interest to today’s powder users. This paper seeks to identify the near term opportunities for application of low volume/high value ultrafine and nano powders.