The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 21, 2002
Filed:
Mar. 23, 2000
Masahito Uchikoshi, Miyagi, JP;
Norio Yokoyama, Miyagi, JP;
Minoru Isshiki, Miyagi, JP;
Kouji Mimura, Miyagi, JP;
Sony Corporation, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
A metal purification method and a metal refinement method in which metals of high purity can be easily refined and recovered without increasing the size of the purification and refining devices or complicating the operation. To this end, metals containing impurities are molten in a plasma arc containing active hydrogen to remove the impurities. If the metals contain ceramics inclusions, the metals are molten in a plasma arc containing active hydrogen and the ceramics inclusions are caused to float over the molten metal by exploiting the difference of density between the molten metal and the ceramics inclusions. The floating ceramics inclusions are decomposed and removed. For application to refining, the metal oxides are molten in a plasma arc containing active hydrogen so as to be reduced to metals.