Tailoring high-entropy alloys via commodity powders for metal injection moulding: A feasibility study

Abstract

High entropy alloys (HEAs) represent a novel frontier in metallurgical advancements, offering exceptional mechanical properties owing to their unique multicomponent nature. This study explores a novel strategy utilising commodity powders - Ni625, Invar36, and CoCrF75 - to tailor HEAs via metal injection moulding (MIM). The objective is to achieve cost-effective manufacturing while maintaining desired properties. The research involves mixing these powders in a specific proportion, integrating them with a sustainable polyethylene glycol-cellulose acetate butyrate binder system, and characterising the resulting feedstocks for MIM processing. Subsequent debinding and sintering steps were executed to densify and form a single face-centered cubic (FCC) phase HEA, followed by comprehensive analyses to evaluate the suitability of the developed HEA compositions. In addition, all MIM stages were thoroughly characterised to control the porosity of the final parts and to ensure a single FCC solid solution with promising mechanical properties in the developed non-equiatomic CoCrFeNiMox-type HEAs.

Keywords

• High entropy alloys
• Metal injection moulding
• Sustainable binders
• Commodity powders