Recently metal injection molding (MIM) has been considered as an alternative in processing complex and near net shaped components besides reducing costs. This process consists of four steps: mixing of metal powders with a binder to prepare a feedstock, injection molding of the feedstock, debinding and sintering. In this work feedstocks prepared for injection molding were based on gas atomized copper powder, as metal component and a thermoplastic binder based on paraffin wax. Mixing was carried out in a Haake mixer and the rheological properties of feedstocks were investigated using a capillary rheometer. The optimum formulation 95/5 wt/wt (copper powder/binder) was obtained from rheological and debinding investigation. It was observed that the feedstocks were very temperature sensitive and showed a pseudoplastic behavior. The injection molding of the feedstocks was performed successfully.
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