Tungsten Thorium Alloy Wire

Thorium is a radioactive metallic element, of which the chemical properties are lively. It has a steel gray sheen, and is soft in texture. Uranium - 233 can be obtained by neutron bombardment of thorium, which is a potential nuclear fuel for uranium - 233. Alloys consisting of tungsten and thorium are often used as electrode materials and as electron tube materials.

Tungsten thorium alloy wire is a kind of doped tungsten wire that doped with thorium. It is also used to produce electronic and electrode tube materials, but the production method is different from that of tungsten thorium alloy. Thorium thorium alloy wire was prepared by mixing thorium nitrate solution with tungstic acid and then drying, reducing, pressing, sintering, swaging and stretching. Specific processes are as follows:

Blue tungsten→doped with thorium nitrate solution→drying→reduction of tungsten powder→acid picking→blending powder→forming→firing→rotary swaginglashen→stretching→thorium tungsten alloy wire

Heating at the working temperature, ThO₂ inhibited the grain growth, improving the recrystallization temperature and creep resistance of tungsten wire, reducing the electronic output of tungsten wire and improving the electron emission ability (the work of escape is the essential characteristic of a material. It indicates that the electrons at the absolute zero of the material overcome the surface barrier and break away from the minimum energy necessary for the metal to escape into the vacuum). The emission efficiency of tungsten thorium alloy wire is almost ten times higher than that of common doped tungsten wire.

Although thorium is a radioactive element, it has been widely used for many years because of its low escape work, high and stable electron emission. Thorium tungsten alloy wire is mainly used in the manufacture of electronic tube, tube hook, spring, high temperature electrode, and a gas discharge light source cathode and seismic. And it has been one of the main raw materials of this kind of device. Only in recent years, with the addition of La, Ce and other rare earth elements, thorium began to fall behind the scenes.

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