ou can't easily see the plant while driving down Little Gap Road, but Ampal Inc. in Palmerton is quietly improving and changing our lives every day.

The largest producer of atomized aluminum powder in North America, Ampal's Palmerton plant produces 1.5 million to 2.5 million pounds of powder each month and approximately 30 million pounds per year.The site was founded in 1982. Ampal's corporate headquarters is in Flemington, New Jersey, and the company was looking for an isolated site with access to the railroad. The plant would also need to allow for easy transport between the new site and testing laboratories in Flemington. The Palmerton location fit their parameters perfectly.Solid aluminum, the primary raw material used on site, is brought in by rail cars primarily from Quebec, Canada. The metal is brought in as a solid "T-bar," each weighing 1,500 pounds.This metal is melted, air-atomized using compressed air, and sprayed into a fine powder."We collect that spray and sell it to our customers, who use it to make their products," said Vice President of Operations John Askeland.Aluminum powder is used primarily in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, such as its use as a deflocculating agent to remove sediment from water. It also used to make pressed metal parts, including automotive and small appliance parts, and combined with other metals such as titanium to create an alloy - a stronger or otherwise better metal than its separate parts.Aluminum is also in high demand in the welding industry. It's used to weld together modern railroad rails, for example.The powder can also be used in propellants and is found in rocket fuel."Every piece of plastic that you use has likely been treated using an aluminum product," said Askeland, demonstrating the way that aluminum powder touches all of our lives. "Every car that is made in the USA has some parts that are made of aluminum powder. It's in high demand. We could easily use a bigger plant."The Palmerton plant employs about 30 people, and operates seven days per week."There are only five aluminum powder plants in American, of which three are 'captive' plants. Captive plants produce for their own internal use," he said, noting that their primary competition is importers.The manufacturing process begins when workers load tons of solid aluminum into furnaces, where it is first melted. Additives are used as catalysts to promote desired chemical reactions, and flux is added as a purifying agent.The liquid aluminum is then atomized, or formed into very small particles, by forcing the liquid through a high-pressure spray. This spray, now a fine powder, is collected and inspected to ensure proper particle size and composition."We are not the final lab. They are just process testing the product," said Askeland, who said that actual analysis is done in their corporate lab in Flemington. "Their job is to oversee the production and to inspect it as they go."The finished product is sent through a long duct to a separate area of the plant to be sorted into desirable grades of fineness. Once sorted, the powder is packaged into 55 gallon drums and 5 gallon pails.The powder is also sold by road truckloads and rail car. Their road trailer carries 48,000 pounds of powder, and takes six hours to fill. The rail car holds 100 tons. The company sells approximately five truckloads per month, and 4-6 rail cars per month.While the plant's basic manufacturing technique remains the same since the 1980s, it has continuously added technology upgrades for safety and quality control. Electronic monitoring allows workers to capture data and study every step of the operation by glancing at touch screens. And because aluminum powder is explosive under the right conditions, safeguards are in place to ensure that any explosions are prevented and, if they do happen, contained.The majority of the manufacturing process is also done outdoors for safety reasons. Lightning rods are on most pieces of equipment, and workers can track any lightning activity up to 50 miles away."If there is lightning activity within 15 miles, we shut down the plant," said Askeland. "We can carry on in any weather, except for lightning."While Ampal Inc. has been manufacturing aluminum powder since 1966, manufacturers are continuously finding new uses for the decades-old product."A new application is always on the horizon," said Askeland. "There's always something new."Perhaps the newest use of aluminum powder is its role as the "ink" in 3-D printers."It's amazing," he said. "I think that's it, there's not going to be any other way to use aluminum powder, and then something new comes out. It's an exciting field."