Ural metal will go into space

This year, the Chelyabinsk Zink Plant (an enterprise of the UMMC metallurgical complex) delivered a record amount of metal (almost 250 kilos) for the aviation industry.

It is an indium-tin alloy – filler metal POIn-52. It consists of 52% indium and 48% tin.

POIn-52 has an extremely low melting temperature and has the ability to completely fill and seal even the smallest pores and voids in parts. These properties allow this filler metal to solder even the thinnest parts that are sensitive to high temperatures – highly sensitive microcircuits used in the space industry.

Our customers use POIn-52 filler metal in the production of on-board equipment,” says Chelyabinsk Zink Plant sales manager Alexander Kharchenko. – Indium has high adhesion with many materials and can even be used to weld metal and glass.

Indium is a by-product of zinc production. Its main field of application is the semiconductor industry. Extra-pure indium is required for the manufacture of germanium rectifiers and amplifiers. Some indium compounds are semiconductors themselves; they are used in the manufacture of thermal couples and other devices. The first kilograms of extra-pure indium with the content of the main element of 99.9999% were obtained by Chelyabinsk Zink Plant in 2017.