"More than half of the auto parts are made by powder metallurgy technology" "The spindle of Huawei triple fold mobile phone is realized by powder injection molding technology"... Recently,

 the 128th the Pearl River Science Lecture Hall entered the Guangzhou Science City Middle School, 

and Liu Xin, the deputy director, doctor of engineering, and senior engineer of the Institute of New Materials, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, gave a keynote speech titled "Power of Cohesion Powder".

How to gather a scattered sand and form a "force" that benefits humanity? Liu Xin introduced that fundamentally, 

sand is a manifestation of powder, and the scientific definition of powder is a collection of discrete particles with a size less than 1 millimeter. In daily life, 

powders are everywhere, such as flour, milk powder, etc. In the industrial field, metal powder is an extremely important industrial raw material.

In industrial applications, metal powders can be prepared in different ways, such as using chemical methods to reduce metal oxides and metal salts with reducing agents.

 This method is also a common approach in current industrial production. 

Liu Xin introduced that through powder metallurgy technology, metal powders used as raw materials can be shaped and sintered to produce metal components. 

In the powder metallurgy process, there is a very important link called the "sintering neck", which achieves tight connections between powder particles at the microscopic scale, condensing the powder into a strong and usable material.

This method greatly saves raw materials, shortens the production process, and can also manufacture some components with particularly complex structures, Liu Xin said.

The biggest application market of powder metallurgy technology is actually in the automotive field, where more than half of automotive components are manufactured using powder metallurgy technology

In the past decade, 3D printing technology has been exceptionally hot and is considered a representative technology driving the third industrial revolution of humanity. 

Liu Xin said that the principle of 3D printing technology is based on digital models, which stack two-dimensional materials into three-dimensional materials layer by layer. 

And combining this technology with powder metallurgy technology to form metal powder 3D printing technology can greatly demonstrate its capabilities in the industrial field

Liu Xin also introduced that his unit and hospital cooperated to use tantalum alloy powder as raw material and 3D printing technology to print human hip joints, and completed the first domestic replacement surgery. 

Tantalum alloy has better biocompatibility with the human body than titanium alloy and is considered the most compatible metal for the human body.

Liu Xin specifically mentioned that in addition to 3D printing technology, there is also a technology called "powder injection molding" that is particularly suitable for making complex components. 

Huawei has just launched a three fold mobile phone, and the hinge of this foldable phone is actually achieved using powder injection molding technology. 

This technology is more efficient, produces larger quantities, and has lower costs than 3D printing technology