1. Preparation of Hard Materials and Superhard Powders
• Recycled cemented carbide materials / regenerated WC powder:
With hardness close to that of the tank material itself, these materials can only be efficiently pulverized with a WC tank, which provides superior wear resistance while preventing contamination from the grinding vessel.
• Diamond micropowder, CBN (cubic boron nitride), and PCD tool materials:
These applications require extremely high hardness and zero iron contamination. Conventional materials such as zirconia grinding tanks cannot withstand the abrasive nature of these materials over extended processing cycles.
• High-melting-point metal carbides:
Including TiC, NbC, Cr₃C₂, VC, and other carbide-based materials. Since these materials share a carbon-based composition, a WC tank minimizes the introduction of foreign metallic elements during grinding.
2. Precious Metals and Strategic Metal Powders
• Platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium catalyst powders, and raw materials for gold/silver pastes:
For high-value materials where even minimal contamination results in significant losses, the extremely low wear rate of WC tanks ensures maximum material recovery. Service life can be 20–50 times longer than stainless steel tanks, making material loss from wear virtually negligible.
• Rare-earth permanent magnet (NdFeB) alloy chips:
Used for dry grinding into powder before sintering processes. WC tanks provide excellent resistance against sharp-edged alloy particles while preventing iron contamination during milling.
3. Geological and High-Energy Physics Sample Preparation
• Rocks, ores, meteorites, and lunar soil simulants:
Compared with traditional agate tanks, which are prone to cracking, and stainless steel tanks, which may introduce metallic contamination, WC tanks offer long-term continuous operation with high durability and can withstand multi-day grinding cycles.
• Single mineral separation and purification:
For applications such as extracting a few milligrams of zircon or monazite from granite for U-Pb geochronology, minimizing material loss and preventing contamination from the grinding vessel are critical factors.
4. Advanced Battery Materials and Extreme Energy Storage Systems
• Silicon-carbon anodes, hard carbon, and borate-based solid electrolytes:
Some formulations contain free silicon or boron components with high hardness and require extended grinding periods lasting dozens of hours. WC tanks offer wear resistance that can be an order of magnitude higher than zirconia tanks in these demanding applications.
• Lithium/sodium metal alloy powders (under inert atmosphere conditions):
WC demonstrates excellent chemical stability during ball milling in argon glovebox environments, outperforming many conventional ceramic grinding materials.
5. High-Temperature Alloys and Intermetallic Compounds
• TiAl, Ni₃Al, and CoCrFeMn high-entropy alloys:
After initial crushing of cast bulk materials, WC tanks combined with WC grinding media enable an "all-WC material system" for closed-loop processing. The primary contamination source is limited to cobalt from the binder phase, which is easier to identify and compensate for during subsequent ICP analysis compared with chromium/nickel contamination introduced by stainless steel equipment.