Production of lead free nanocomposite solder by mechanical alloying

• Grant number: 12/10800-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: August 01, 2012
• End date: July 31, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Materials and Metallurgical Engineering
• Principal Investigator: Marcelo Falcão de Oliveira
• Grantee: Joaquim Manoel Justino Netto
• Host Institution: Escola de Engenharia de São Carlos (EESC). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Solders play a fundamental role as jointing materials in the electronics industry: they must guarantee electrical, thermal, and mechanical continuity between the connected components. The performance and quality of solder are essential to the welded joints' integrity, which is crucial to the good operation of the assembly as a whole. For a long time, alloys of the system Sn-Pb have been used in soldering. However, concerns about lead, which is inherently toxic, led to the prohibition of its usage in electronic artifacts in the USA, Japan, and countries of the European Union. The need of developing lead-free soldiers with good properties in general thus emerged. In his work, Babaghorbani developed a method based on Powder Metallurgy techniques, using a microwave sintering route, to produce a new solders generation of the system Sn-Ag. According to his results, good properties have been obtained with the incorporation of Cu and SnO2 nanoparticles as reinforcements in the Sn-Ag matrix. In this work, Mechanical Alloying will be used as an alternative to the Powder Metallurgy techniques, which need sintering and imply in higher costs, to obtain a composite solder with nanoparticulated cooper reinforcements.(AU)