AMETEK Specialty Metal Products (SMP), Collegeville, Pennsylvania, USA, has reported that its Vice President of Sales & Marketing – Powders, Michael Marucci delivered a presentation titled ‘Master Alloys Today for Tomorrow’s Applications’ at Titanium Europe 2019, which took place in Vienna, Austria, earlier this year. 

During his presentation, Marucci defined a master alloy as a combination of two or more metals in a metallurgically alloyed form, added with base metals into a melt furnace charge to achieve desired final ingot chemistry. He also reviewed aerospace-quality master alloys as well as vanadium, molybdenum, niobium, and multi-component master alloys. Marucci stated, “Process control to regulate precise chemistry consistency and non-metallic inclusions is essential. Quality is nonnegotiable.”

According to Marucci, key issues for master alloy producers include certification of raw material suppliers, documentation and traceability, supplier understanding and acknowledgement of the risk of high-density inclusions, risk prevention strategies, comprehensive inspection strategies, and robust audit and record retention.

He concluded his remarks by focusing on the status of the global vanadium market, commenting that ongoing vanadium demand from China “will continue to drive the price in Europe and North America New vanadium capacity is entering the market during 2019, but it will need qualification. The high purity vanadium pentoxide market will remain concentrated with multinational producers leveraging pricing.”

The full presentation is available to view online via YouTube. 

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