Sandvik Materials Technology, a world-leading manufacturer of high value-added products in advanced stainless steels and special alloys,  and ThyssenKrupp VDM, one of the world’s leading suppliers of nickel and cobalt alloys, titanium and other high-performance materials, have announced that they have agreed on a cooperation on the production and sale of zirconium products.

Sandvik with its many years of experience in the zirconium business offers already a wide range of zirconium products including seamless tubes and pipes that can now be combined with sheets and plates produced by ThyssenKrupp VDM. ThyssenKrupp VDM uses Sandvik ingots to produce the sheets and plates in their German works. Both companies are expecting a great potential by combining sales efforts in order to enable supply of complete product packages to serve customers with a tailor-made set of zirconium products in a wide range of dimensions. Both companies rely on their outstanding metallurgical expertise and their own global distribution networks to meet rising customer demands.

Zirconium is the ideal choice in many corrosive environments from both the technical and economical points of view with regard to the price/life time relation. It is resistant in most organic acids, mineral acids as well as in strong alkaline and saline solutions. Typical applications are reactor vessels, columns, heat exchangers, coolers, condensers and piping systems in the production of urea, acetic acid, formic acid, nitric acid and methyl methacrylate.