GB458314A - Process for the manufacture of alloys containing boron - Google Patents

Abstract

Alloys containing boron are prepared by mixing with an alkaline earth boride, such as calcium or barium boride, the metal or metals to be alloyed with the boron, in metallic form or in the form of oxides or salts, and bringing this mixture under a layer of flux to a temperature sufficient to cause the fusion of the whole and not below 1000 DEG C. When using oxides or salts, these may be reduced by the boride itself, employed in quantity sufficient to effect the reduction and to provide the requisite proportion of boron in the final alloy, or by agents such as aluminium, magnesium, calcium, sodium, carbon or silicon in the presence of a suitable quantity of boride. The reaction may be effected in an electric furnace or aluminothermically. The flux may be anhydrous borax or boric anhydride. Binary alloys of boron with iron, aluminium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, chromium, molybdenum, tungsten, vanadium, titanium, tantalum, or silicon and ternary or more complex alloys of boron with any of these elements or copper, zinc, tin, antimony, or lead may be produced.