The article reviews the progress made on bronze alloys processed through various casting techniques, and focuses on enhancements in the microstructural characteristics, hardness, tensile properties, and tribological behaviour of Cu-Sn and Cu-Sn-Ti alloys. Copper and its alloys have found several applications in the fields of automobiles, marine and machine tools specifically for propellers in submarines, bearings, and bushings. It has also been reported that bronze alloys are especially used as an anti-wear and friction-reducing material to make high performance bearings for roller cone cock bits and warships for defence purposes. In these applications, properties like tensile strength, yield strength, fatigue strength, elongation, hardness, impact strength, wear resistance, and corrosion resistance are very important; however, these bronze alloys possess only moderate hardness, which results in low wear resistance, thereby limiting the application of these alloys in the automobile industry. The major factor that influences the properties of bronze alloys is the microstructure. Morphological changes in these bronze alloys are achieved through different manufacturing techniques, such as casting, heat treatment, and alloy addition, which enhance the mechanical, tribological, and corrosion characteristics. Alloying of Ti to cast Cu-Sn is very effective in changing the microstructure of bronze alloys. Reinforcing the bronze matrix with several ceramic particles and surface modifications also improves the properties of bronze alloys. The present article reviews the techniques involved in changing the microstructure and enhancing the mechanical and tribological behaviours of cast Cu-Sn and Cu-Sn-Ti alloys. Moreover, this article also reviews the industrial applications and future scope of these cast alloys in the automobile and marine industries.

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This research work focuses on the practicality of using organic binders for the briquetting of pellet fines. The developed briquettes were evaluated in terms of mechanical strength and reduction behavior with hydrogen. A hydraulic compression testing machine and thermogravimetric analysis were incorporated into this work to investigate the mechanical strength and reduction behavior of the produced briquettes. Six organic binders, namely Kempel, lignin, starch, lignosulfonate, Alcotac CB6, and Alcotac FE14, in addition to sodium silicate, were tested for the briquetting of pellet fines. The highest mechanical strength was achieved using sodium silicate, Kempel, CB6, and lignosulfonate. The best combination of binder to attain the required mechanical strength even after 100% reduction was found to be a combination of 1.5 wt.% of organic binder (either CB6 or Kempel) with 0.5 wt.% of inorganic binder (sodium silicate). Upscaling using an extruder gave propitious results in the reduction behavior, as the produced briquettes were highly porous and attained pre-requisite mechanical strength.