Elaboration of high purity iron (RRR>4000) by horizontal zone melting—attempts for chemical characterization

Abstract High purity iron bars were prepared by horizontal zone melting in a water cooled copper boat. The bar is zone melted five times under helium and five times under dry hydrogen. In order to characterize the metal, RRR measurements were performed on cold rolled and annealed samples in dry and wet hydrogen. The RRR measurements vary with the water content of hydrogen: 2734 after dry annealing, 4287 after wet annealing. The RRR variation cannot be related to titanium, chromium, copper or manganese internal oxidation, but to that of aluminium and silicon. After chemical polishing, RRR measurements increase by about 2000 points. If we want to adopt the RRR measurement as a purity criterion of the samples, the surface treatments and the annealing conditions have to be stated. We tried to connect the RRR to the chemical purity of the material. Considering the present analysis capabilities and the high purity metal degree involved, it seems difficult to directly connect the RRR measurements to the variation of the chemical impurities contents.