A $40 shop vac comes to mind.

Think about blowing it with a small compressor and an educator instead of "sucking" it. Much cheaper and easier. Look up pneumatic transport of solids.

Anything like this will though create a lot of dust and you will need to consider how to filter out the particles from the large amount of air entrained with your solids. I think the quantity is between 10 to 20 times the volume of powder that you want to transport to give you some idea.

Flow velocity is everything in this mode of transport.

It seems a lot of trouble for moving 1 cubic metre 2 metres away.... Can't you shovel it?

My motto: Learn something new every day

Also: There's usually a good reason why everyone does it that way

Put the first box high on a stand, modify the box to have a tapered bottom that goes to a funnel and a pipe, vibrate to transfer the dust.

http://www.vac-u-max.com/product.cfm?cat=products-...

Amazing how Google is your friend - a pity more don't know this and use it, but then what would we do to fill in our spare time .

It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. (Sherlock Holmes - A Scandal in Bohemia.)

What sort of metal powder and how fine is it? Be careful about fluidising quantities of fine dust that are reactive (magnesium, aluminium etc.)- You can get an explosion.

I know this isn't the best reference- but I don't have any better to hand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_explosion

As a chem eng/metallurgist the first part of any answer I give starts with "It Depends"

I'm quite surprised that this question, which lacked any detail to provide any reasonable attempt at an answer, got 6 replies. People are really trying to help- but you do need to give detail in your question to get meaningful answers!