A new technology for making variously shaped and sized articles (crucibles, tubes, pallets, bottom plates) from refractory metals (molybdenum, tungsten, rhenium, iridium) has been developed on the basis of molten salt electrolysis.
Scrap (rejected inoperative articles, clippings, chips, etc.) containing the refractory metals can be used as a starting material, including nuclear industry radioactive wastes, which in great amounts are collected at the industrial facilities and cannot be reprocessed by conventional technologies. Articles made of radioactive scrap by this technology do not contain radioactive impurities.
• The products made by this technology have distinctive structural features that increase their lifetime by 2 to 5 times as compared to the lifetime of analogous products manufactured by traditional methods.
• Products made by this technology are chemically pure (99.99%) and have high shape stability and resistance under multiple heat loads at temperatures of up to 2000оC.
• The technology has been perfected using largescale laboratory equipment. Samples of various articles have been obtained. For example, an installation has been made for making molybdenum trays of standard sizes (305х160х160 mm), which have successfully passed the full-scale testing in industry.
