Patent ID: 7547346

Claim:
A process for producing extremely small metal spherical particles of high uniform size and high sphericity comprising the following steps: melting metal starting material; rotating a disk at a speed of 50,000 to 100,000 rpm using a motor in a vacuum chamber, wherein an inside of the vacuum chamber is vacuumed; discharging the molten metal starting material through a nozzle toward the disk rotating in the vacuum chamber; dispersing said molten metal starting material into tiny spherical droplets by the rotating disk in the vacuum chamber; cooling said dispersed metal droplets by directing a cooling-reaction gas to contact the dispersed metal spherical droplets and thus solidify the droplets into tiny spherical particles and form an anti-adhesion coating on the particles in the vacuum chamber, whereby the tiny spherical particles comprise a crystalline composition having a size of 1-300 μm and precise spherical shape of less than or equal to ±10%, whereby the crystalline composition comprises a nanocomposite structure of metals including an aggregate of nano-sized metal components separated within the particles by layers or discrete nano-sized bodies having composition selected from the group consisting of metal oxides, metal nitrides and metal silicides.