Tender for the Supply and Installation of a Sintering System for the Production of Ndfeb Magnets

The University of Birmingham invites tenders for supply of a bespoke sintering system for the production of sintered NdFeB permanent magnets.

The equipment must comply with all the relevant UK law, regulations, and British Standards.

General characteristics

A sintering furnace for NdFeB with a minimum capacity of 50 kg per batch. The system must incorporate inert loading of pressed NdFeB compacts

Specification

i. Requirements

1. The complete system must be capable of the handling of batch sizes of a minimum of 50 kg, nominally for rectangular magnet blocks with dimensions up to 40mm x 40mm x 20mm.
2. The system should allow for inert loading of pressed compacts by use of a glove box system.
3. The system needs to be ergonomically designed for the efficient handling of the material, facilitating the inert handling and transfer of green compacts (maximum oxygen content 20 ppm) also allowing for the easy transfer in and out of sintering trays.
4. The sintering vessel should be capable of being pumped down to a vacuum level of 10-4 mBar, with appropriate filters / traps to avoid powder entering the vacuum pump.
5. The sintering furnace must be capable of consistently achieving temperatures up to a minimum of 1200°C under vacuum or inert gas with good thermal uniformity (in the order of

+/-5°C) during the ramp and sintering stages.

6. During the sintering process hydrogen will be evolved from the compacts (up to 900°C). The pumping system must be capable of safely removing this hydrogen. The sintering system needs to have the ability to actively cool the material from the sintering temperature at a controlled rate. Appropriate control should be incorporated with the ability to log the process parameters. Temp, Vacuum, oxygen levels, moisture levels, flow rates, power consumption. Ability to set multiple programmes for gas control and temp profiles through PID control.

ii. Optional Component Technologies

7. The system could incorporate two solvent extraction chambers and pumping systems to remove solvents from the green compacts prior to the sintering process