EB Toll Melting Service

Electron Beam melting is offered at the ALD in-house furnace for more than 15 years.

We operate our own in-house furnace for the purpose of testing new components, performing test melts of customer material prior to selling a furnace and offering toll conversion of valuable material.

EB melting furnace at the test center of ALD Vacuum Technologies GmbH

ALD Vacuum Technologies GmbH is well known as a leading supplier of Electron Beam melting furnaces for remelting refractory metals. Nowadays almost all key players in the market for high purity Tantalum and Niobium-Metal ingots are using ALD systems for their remelting operations. ALD is a world leading manufacture of Electron Beam melting systems for the refining of refractory metals. Since the beginning of industrial application of Electron Beam melting ALD continuously improved the technology. Almost all key players in the market for high purity Tantalum and Niobium are using ALD Electron Beam technology.

The ALD in-house-furnace is used for continuous improvement of the furnace design and process, which can later be adapted in customer applications. Customers can familiarize themselves with the Electron Beam melting technology at the facility and run first pilot melts with their own material.

For more than 15 years ALD has successfully been offering the Electron Beam toll melting service for refractory metals like Vanadium, Hafnium, Niobium, Tantalum, Zirconium and Titanium and their alloys as well as for precious metals. The service starts from button melting for material analysis but also includes melt campaigns on metric tons-scale for refractory metals.

With the engineering capabilities and the spare parts stockpile of a furnace manufacturer in the background, ALDs Electron Beam melting service is your reliable partner in remelting of refractory metals.

ALD EB melting service

Our in-house Electron Beam melting furnace is capable of performing small scale test melts and pilot scale production melting with all the melting variations available on our production and lab scale systems sold worldwide.

Material feed can be performed via horizontal bar feeding, vertical electrode (II) feeding or direct granular feeding into crucible or hearth.

Our service can be divided in three major parts:

1. R&D button and small ingot test melting for material development and analysis

Customers can test the feasibility of Electron Beam melting of their meterial in respect of refining or, in case of alloys, in keeping the alloy composition, ALD is offering base test melts oft he supplied material in button crucibles or to small ingots with diameters in-between 15 mm to 150 mm in the existing continuous casting crucibles on a daily rate.

2. Production melting of recycled refractory metal scrap

Customers who have not yet decided to invest in their own melting facilities ALDs EB melting service is offering remelting of customer supplied refractory metals like Hafnium, Molybdenum, Niobium and Tantalum with high melting points and reactive metals like Titanium, Zirconium and Vanadium on a toll base either per kg or on a daily base depending on volume. Material feed is typically performed by horizontal bar feeding.  Bulk material can be consolidated to plate, small agglomerates up to 10 mm fed by a vibratory feeder. Shift operation allows melting remarkable quantities of up to 600 kg/day depending on the quality of the input material. Further refining melts of the resulting ingots are typically performed by vertical drip melting.

3. Precious metals refining

Special arrangements in the furnace also allow to melt precious metals like Pt, Ir, Rh. Evaporated material is collected on dedicated shieldings, to prevent losses of material.

Down times of the furnace are kept to a minimum with the spare parts stockpile and the engineering capabilities of a furnace manufacturer in the background.

All melting takes place in ceramic free, water cooled copper crucibles allowing highest purity.

For more details please contact

Mr. Jochen Flinspach, Fon +49 6181 307 3358, Jochen.Flinspach@ald-vt.de