CuMn₂RuSb₁₂Sr

Architectural potential

An antimony-heavy sintered metal whose 350 MPa compressive strength and fifty-three-per-cent cut in embodied CO₂ against structural steel place it squarely in the connector and hardware register: powder-pressed brackets, fçade clips, furniture joints, balustrade fittings, and node pieces where a single-part monolithic geometry would otherwise need welding or milling. Fired at 1100 °C, the body accepts machining and finish-work cleanly and takes patina willingly, which lets the green-red-copper face carry its own architectural signature rather than being hidden behind paint. Natural placements are visible hardware in public interiors — handrail brackets in museums, fçade clips for terracotta rainscreen systems, connector nodes in timber-heavy pavilion construction, custom hinges and latches in exhibition architecture. Against cast or welded steel, the argument is geometry and carbon: complex node shapes without tooling a mould, half the embodied carbon, three-quarters less process energy. At 200 g per batch with a 500 g workshop ceiling, however, the reach is limited to single pieces or small runs. The caveat is cost in another register: antimony and ruthenium content push supply chain dependence on non-European sources, and safety-score concerns around antimony dust call for sealed sintering and careful extraction during the powder-handling stage.

Material character

The slab carries the unmistakable green-red-copper shift of a copper-manganese alloy over an antimony-strontium base — a patina that reads bronze at shallow angles and flushes toward verdigris along the shadowed edges. At 7.30 g/cm³ in a 70×70×28 mm piece, the slab refuses the one-handed lift: it sits closer to a dense bronze casting than to an aluminium or sintered-iron component of the same footprint. Skin sintered-matte with the fine granular texture of a powder-pressed body, distinct from the smoother sheen of a cast metal. Edges cold-cut, with a slight burr from the diamond saw left along the kerf. Tapped, the body answers with the high metallic note of a dense sintered alloy.