American Elements: Thorium Oxide Powder Supplier & Tech Info

American Elements specializes in producing spray dry and non-spray dry high purity Thorium Oxide Powder with the smallest possible average grain sizes for use in preparation of pressed and bonded sputtering targets and in Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) and Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) processes including Thermal and Electron Beam (E-Beam) Evaporation, Low Temperature Organic Evaporation, Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD), Metallic-Organic and Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD). Powders are also useful in any application where high surface areas are desired such as water treatment and in fuel cell and solar applications. Nanoparticles (See also Nanotechnology Information and Quantum Dots) also produce very high surface areas. Our standard Powder particle sizes average in the range of - 325 mesh, - 100 mesh, 10-50 microns and submicron (< 1 micron) and our spray dried powder with binder provides an extremely narrow particle size distribution (PSD) for use in thermal and plasma spray guns and other coating applications. We can also provide many materials in the nanoscale range. Materials are produced using crystallization, solid state and other ultra high purification processes such as sublimation. American Elements specializes in producing custom compositions for commercial and research applications and for new proprietary technologies. American Elements also casts any of the rare earth metals and most other advanced materials into rod, bar or plate form, as well as other machined shapes and through other processes such as nanoparticles (See also application discussion at Nanotechnology Information and at Quantum Dots) and in the form of solutions and organometallics. We also produce Thorium Oxide as pellets, pieces, tablets, and sputtering target. Oxide compounds are not conductive to electricity. However, certain perovskite structured oxides are electronically conductive finding application in the cathode of solid oxide fuel cells and oxygen generation systems. Other shapes are available by request.

Thorium is a Block F, Group 3, Period 7 element. The electronic configuration is [Rn] 6d² 7s². In its elemental form thorium's CAS number is 7440-29-1. The thorium atom has a radius of 179.8.pm and it's Van der Waals radius is 200.pm. Thorium is a lanthanide (rare earth) material with potential nuclear power applications. Thorium is available as metal and compounds with purities from 99% to 99.999% (ACS grade to ultra-high purity); metals in the form of foil, sputtering target, and rod, and compounds as submicron and nanopowder. It is presently used as a tungsten coating in electronic parts due to its high emission factor.