ABSTRACT
Radio frequency thermal plasma is a versatile process for engineering powder preparation owing to its high energy density and reactivity. Molybdenum powders were prepared from molybdenum sheet scrap by RF thermal plasma in association with powder comminution process. Molybdenum scrap which was used in high temperature environment was friable enough to be broken into micropowders by hammer milling. Spherical molybdenum micro-powder was obtained from the hammer milled powders were treated via thermal plasma. On the other hand, vaporization and condensation pathway for nanoparticle synthesis is largely dependent on both thermo-physical properties and thermal plasma properties. In this regard, molybdenum trioxide was chosen for the feedstock of nanoparticle synthesis. Additional reactivity of argon-hydrogen thermal plasma, oxide feedstock was fully reduced to bcc molybdenum. Considering different reaction pathway of each feedstock, molybdenum nanoparticle attached molybdenum spherical micro-powder could be effectively synthesized by feeding a blended feedstock of molybdenum micro-powder and molybdenum trioxide micro-powder into argon-hydrogen thermal plasma.
