Patent ID: 6852274

Claim:
A method of producing a hard metal granulate, which comprises: wet milling hard material and binding metal components desired in the hard metal granulate and preparing a sprayable slurry with water as a liquid phase and having a solid particle concentration within a range of 65-85% by weight; introducing the slurry into a spray tower spray-drying the slurry in a gas stream having a gas inlet temperature of substantially 160° to 220° C. and a gas exit temperature in a range of substantially 85° to 130° C., to convert the slurry to granular form; wherein the slurry is sprayed and dried substantially without addition of a water-soluble long-chain polyglycol in the spray tower; and wherein the spray tower is constructed and operated such that a ratio of water added with the slurry, in liters per hour, to a tower volume of the spray tower, in m 3 , lies between 0.5 and 1.8 and such that a maximum of 0.17 kg of slurry is atomized per m 3 of incoming drying gas.