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“Scrap is the new gold” and other hardmetal and hard materials insights from Euro PM2023 Congress, Lisbon The European Powder Metallurgy Association’s annual congress has always featured technical presentations that reflect the diverse nature of the region’s PM industry, from structural parts to hardmetals and other hard materials, Metal Injection Moulding and, more recently, metal Additive Manufacturing. This year’s event, however, was of particular interest for the hardmetals community as it fell on the 100th anniversary of the Schröter patent application for metal-bonded WC. Here, Bernard North reports on the latest developments in the industry, as well as the story of its early beginnings.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, the European Powder Metallurgy Association (EPMA) conducted its main annual conferences online. However, in 2022, the situation returned to normal. Its main conference, which also served as a World Congress that year, had approximately 1,070 attendees. This year, the Euro PM2023 Congress and Exhibition was held from October 1-4 in Lisbon, Portugal, at the Lisboa Congress Centre (CCL). The venue was in an impressive location by the Tagus River near the longest suspension bridge in Europe, the 25 th of April Bridge, the name of which celebrates the Carnation Revolution of 1974 (Fig. 1). This review is primarily directed at the forty or so cemented carbides and related hard materials contributions given at the conference. However, general aspects of the conference and the plenary session will also be covered.
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The plenary session Dr Lionel Aboussouan, the EPMA’s Executive Director, welcomed the participants and announced that the attendance was around 800, which is slightly lower than in pre-COVID times but still highly commend-
able. The associated exhibition was well supported, with around seventy organisations having booths. Aboussouan (Fig. 2) briefly summarised the EPMA’s history since its founding in 1989; it has just ten employees and is able to do much of its work through an extensive
Fig. 1 The Euro PM2023 Congress and Exhibition was held at the Lisboa Congress Centre (CCL), set in an impressive location by the Tagus River, near the longest suspension bridge in Europe (Courtesy EPMA)
Winter 2023
PM Review
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Euro PM2023: scrap is the new gold
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