The Metalysis electrolysis process – applicable to 49 elements of the periodic table – is producing metals and metal alloys which are driving forward electronics, semiconductors, hypersonics, aerospace, and defence etc, writes CEO Nitesh Shah.
The need for advanced materials has never been more acute.
The backbone of our greatest innovations – smart phones, semiconductors, defence tech, capacitors, hypersonics, space propulsion, small modular reactors, as well as AI and WiFi systems, rely upon the materials utilised in their manufacture.
It is the development and application of advanced materials – materials with novel or enhanced properties compared to conventional materials – which are driving the innovation revolution we see today.
End-applications are required to be stronger, lighter, more resistant to extreme temperatures, pressures and stresses – or need to hold higher electrical charges longer, or hold a very high piezoelectric capacity.
Since 6000 BCE, man has been using heating and melting to separate metals from their ores. In the 19th and 20th centuries electrolysis developed for the production of zinc and aluminium.
In 1997 three Cambridge scientists, Fray-Farthing-Chen developed the Cambridge ‘FFC’ electrochemical process for the sustainable production of titanium. The process was developed to extract titanium from solid oxides at lower energy consumption via electrochemical reduction in molten calcium chloride – liberating the oxygen and leaving a metal or alloy sponge. William Kroll who pioneered modern titanium production in the 1930s predicted that within 15 years an electrochemical challenger would subsume his model.
In 2002 the now patented FFC process was transferred from Cambridge University into a corporate entity, Metalysis. Since then the firm has built upon its experience, with the technology now applicable to 49 elements of the periodic table. Inputs can be refined oxides, ores or secondary materials. Metalysis has scaled its electrochemical technology – from research units – Gen 1 which produce grammes of output per run, to kgs per run at Gen 2, tonnes per year at Gen 3 up to industrial outputs of tens of tonnes per year at Gen 4. Over 300 patents now exist across 20 patent families.
Contra to melting processes, the Metalysis FFC process:
Is single stage: many traditional metal production processes are slow and batch-focused multi-stage.
Low in energy use – e.g. traditional titanium alloy production requires several high energy intensive melt steps – and many other materials such as high scandium containing aluminium scandium alloys are made using scandium metal which has undergone several melt steps. The process uses 50% less energy (when compared to spherical titanium production for additive manufacturing).
Has a higher yield efficiency: oxide-in to powder-out, Metalysis when compared to traditional melt routes is a far more efficient process.
The only significant consumables are the traditionally graphite anode, the salt electrolyte and the argon which is used to provide an inert atmosphere.
End-Application benefits:
The Metalysis process brings unique attributes to each novel advanced material it manufactures – with slight changes to the duration, voltage, current, heat or salt composition resulting in changes to the unique attributes in the end-material.
Alloying in the solid-state (the oxides are not melted) allows for unlimited alloying capability – and the groundbreaking opportunity to create commercial outputs of high entropy alloys.
Near-net shape reduced powders can be used more efficiently in end-products so less wastage in applications.
Advanced manufacturing is one of the eight priority sectors recognised in the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy published in June, and advanced materials are highlighted as one of six ‘frontier manufacturing industries’ with the greatest growth potential. Technology needs to overcome the physical limitations of traditional materials – particularly when blending metals into alloys. Trying to alloy materials with vastly different chemical and physical properties is a challenge that traditional melting processes for alloying fails to overcome – e.g. the difference in melting point between tantalum and aluminium is 2336 degrees Celsius, so when alloying these your aluminium would evaporate. Metalysis can create alloys in its solid-state electrolysis process – blended within the process – rather than melting elemental metals followed by blending. This allows Metalysis to create a series of market-making alloys and game-changer high entropy alloys:
Aluminium scandium alloy – Al3Sc. The Metalysis process is capable of alloying scandium with aluminium – at scandium loadings as high as 36 wt% / 25 atomic %. The material is fully homogenised. Employing downstream Powder Metallurgy (PM) techniques such as Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) show that consolidation occurs solely in the solid state, where dispersion of the Al3Sc phase is governed by the initial homogenization of the metal powders. It is not dependent on the cooling rate of a melt (in traditional melting processes), an approach which both influences the Al3Sc precipitate size, and can lead to segregation. This material is utilised via thin film deposition to dust semiconductor parts so massively increasing the piezoelectric capacity of the material.
Niobium Hafnium C103. C103 is a highly effective refractory alloy which is used in space, aerospace and hypersonic construction. Given the rise in price of hafnium – a key part of C103 – it is vital to have a process than ensures efficient use of input material.
High Entropy Alloys (HEAs)
“High Entropy Alloys (HEAs) represent a fundamental divergence from the way humankind has approached alloy development for the last 5,000 years. Instead of starting with one base element which accounts for most of the alloy composition and adding dilute amounts of other elements, HEAs focus on the unexplored central regions of multi-element phase diagrams, where three or more alloying elements occur in concentrated amounts, and there is no obvious single base element. This novel approach opens the door to millions of new alloy systems, including materials with unique, never-before-seen combinations of structural and/or functional properties”. Defining Pathways for Realising the Revolutionary Potential of High Entropy Alloys, TMS, 2021.
Metalysis can alloy materials with vastly different physical and chemical properties – e.g. the difference in melting point between Nb and Ta is over 500 degrees Celsius – alloying occurring via solid-state electrolysis not via melting. When applied to the periodic table this means 10 to the power of 40 elements can be alloyed – unleashing a fundamental shift in the paradigm of alloys and metals.
Accordingly, Metalysis is focused on the production of lightweight refractory high entropy alloys – those with the largest differences – and these bring refractory and lightweighting and so are being sought after by the hypersonics, clean energy, space, defence sectors.
