Bangalore, January'2014: Hind High Vacuum Co Pvt Ltd (HHV) has announced that it has manufactured a Tungsten Carbide (WC) tools recycling plant. This plant has been made by HHV with state-of-the-art engineering and design and successfully installed at the customer site, a global tooling leader.

Established in 1965 at Bangalore to develop Indian self-reliance in high vacuum technology, HHV has now grown into a leading global player involved in the design, development and manufacture of off-the-shelf and customized equipment and products based on vacuum science and technology.

The advancement in power metallurgy has led to the development of high performance special tools made of tungsten carbide. These tools are used in a variety of applications like drilling, cutting, boring, etc. Since tungsten is a very limited mineral resource available only in a few countries and the disposal of carbide tools has an impact on the environment, there is a large demand for recycling of used tungsten carbide tools.

Talking about the carbide tool recycling plant, Mr Nagarjun Sakhamuri, Managing Director of HHV said that "HHV has been designing, developing and commissioning tungsten carbide tools recycling systems for global tooling leaders for more than two decades. This is a major accomplishment for HHV and our team at Bangalore as it is made with state-of-the-art engineering and design."

"As the use of tungsten carbide tools in various industries is increasing exponentially in recent years, HHV's recycling system is bound to gain popularity in the years to come." added Mr Nagarjun Sakhamuri. HHV's carbide recycling high productivity plant has a vacuum furnace of 2200 mm diameter and 2550 mm height. The furnace is designed for a maximum temperature of 980?C using special type heating elements to heat the vacuum bell and charge bell. The temperature is precisely monitored with thermocouple, protection system and control system with a temperature uniformity of 5?C.

An independent mechanical pump based vacuum system has been designed to create a vacuum level of 300 mbar in a charge bell and 0.01mbar in the vacuum bell. Vacuum level is measured with a high precision digital measuring gauge. The whole system is provided with safety interlocks, PC based control instrumentation and SCADA system for data acquisition of the entire processes.

The Zinc ingot will be placed over scrapped WC tools in a graphite boat inside the charge bell of size 940mm diameter and 1545 mm height. The charge bell will be heated to a required temperature to melt the Zinc ingot and the scrapped WC tool exposed to the liquefied Zinc. The liquefied Zinc permeates into the heated WC tools.

The liquefied Zinc evaporates when the vacuum bell which is placed over the charge bell is under vacuum. The evaporated Zinc will be cooled and condensed in the form of an ingot with a specially designed water cooled condenser. Ultimately, the solid WC is transformed into a sponge-like porous cake which can be easily pulverized and can be recycled.

Most of HHV's customers belong to the high tech fields such as space, aerospace, atomic energy, astronomy, automotive, defence, electronics, energy, medicine, metallurgy, semiconductors and the like.