Quality improvements in tantalum powder by automation of sodium reduction system

Sodium reduction process is one of the most important and critical step in producing the tantalum powder for capacitor applications. Existing manually operated sodium reduction unit was inadequate for monitoring and control of critical process parameters leading to low quality tantalum powder. To improve powder quality an advanced instrumentation and control system has been designed and fabricated. Automated sodium reduction unit is functioning smoothly and good quality tantalum powder produced with consistency and good repeatability when compare to old system and the results of such an investigation are presented here.