Scanning the atmosphere of MIM furnaces

Quality assurance for debinding and sintering of MIM parts is certainly a promising research field of investigation in the coming years. So far only few opportunities of looking into an industrial-scale MIM furnace have been developed. By connecting a mass spectrometer to the exhaust system of a batch furnace, we are able to show for the first time what is going on during the debinding and sintering cycle. In this work, the processing of carbonyl iron parts from reduced carbonyl iron powder under neutral and reducing atmospheres was monitored. The spectra show the temperatures and conditions for carburisation and decarburisation.