Review of the Hardmetal Recycling Market and the Role of the Zinc Process as a Recycling Option

18th Plansee Seminar International Conference on Refractory Metals and Hard Materials Reutte/Austria 3 – 7 June, 2013. -pp. -HM13/1-HM13/11.Recycling in the hardmetal industry has greatly gained in popularity since 2005 due to the increase in tungsten prices. The recent developments in hardmetal recycling, the various recycling options and their market shares in Europe are reviewed and the future outlook is discussed. A significant new development in recent years has been the emergence of the zinc process as a new recycling option. The basics of the zinc process are reviewed and the current position of the zinc process in the recycling market is discussed. Both lab and production scale experiments were carried out where WC-Co zinc reclaim powders were blended with virgin raw materials and the effect of such additions on the processing of powders and properties of sintered hardmetal were analyzed. Results of both laboratory and production scale tests are shown and discussed. The results show that the WC-Co zinc reclaim powders when added in the right amounts and processed properly have no negative effect on the properties of sintered hardmetal. Based on the results various applications for zinc reclaim powders are discussed