From learning about carbide recycling materials to knowing what to do with tungsten waste, there’s a lot of information on the tungsten market. Hope this information will help everyone better understand the basics and field of operation of the tungsten industry.
Specifically, this information will help people better understand tungsten, its properties, what it is used for, and its history.
Recycling
Metal recovery from used products has a long tradition in the use of metals long before this activity became widespread in the name of recycling and sustainable management. In the case of Tungsten Scrap Recyclers, recovery from used products can be traced back to the early 1930s, shortly after the development of each material. A recent aspect of the recycling debate is the concept of a circular economy aimed at overcoming the limits of natural resource depletion.
Looking at tungsten, it is noteworthy that state-of-the-art technology can obtain tungsten from natural resources at concentrations as low as 0.06% in an economically feasible way. Many of the tungsten products in use today can be collected in much higher concentrations after the life of these products has expired, and there are many techniques for converting them into raw materials and new products.
Products and Scraps
The product serves a specific purpose. For tungsten products, the term “product” is further subdivided into a product for first use and a product for end-use. First-time use products are sometimes referred to as semi-finished products. To be the final product, the first product example above would require additional manufacturing steps. Carbide rods can be ground into metal cutting drills or end mills. Many drill bits can be shrunk into steel parts to make drill heads for mining purposes. The basis for manufacturing first-time products is so-called intermediate products:
- Tungsten Carbide Products
Tungsten recycling rates are primarily affected by use in tungsten carbide products, which account for two-thirds of the world’s tungsten consumption, according to first-time use analysis. This percentage increases over time and may grow further. This segment also has several applications that can be divided into groups of different application areas for better understanding, such as cutting tools, mining, construction, energy, wear parts, and non-cutting.
- Steels and Superalloys
Tungsten in smelting and metallurgy for the production of steel and superalloys is the second-largest application of tungsten but is pursuing a completely different recycling route. Tungsten steel scrap generated in the structure of tools and machines is collected in the same way as hard metal.
- Tungsten Metal Products
Tungsten metal products, also known as tungsten rolled products, are available in the PM (powder metallurgy) range of alloys including Wsingle bondage, Wsingle bondCu, and WCAg, for lighting, electronics, high-temperature applications, electrical contacts, heavy metals, and high power switches. These products are named because they are manufactured almost exclusively by the powder metallurgy process and account for 10% of the world’s tungsten consumption.
