Research project nanoRec
Hard materials and wear-resistant coatings with increased lifetime based on novel and recycled nanomaterials
Project data
Project management organisation | BMBF |
Project number | 03X3573B |
Term | 01.04.2013 - 31.03.2016 |
Description
The overall target of the project aims at:
- enhanced resource efficiency via material innovation,
- reduction of demands for strategic metals like tungsten and cobalt,
- intelligent and efficient use of recyclable nano-scaled materials and
- replacement of the environmentally and health hazardous cobalt by less critical metals.
The work aims at the improvement of the wear protection of components reinforced with hard metals and spray coating. The solutions that are to be developed simultaneously create a basis for new hard metal cutting tool, going far beyond the field of application examined in the project itself.
The project goals are to be realized by the development of a new class of composite materials and wear protection coatings, consisting of a hard tungsten carbide phase and a ductile metallic binder phase. Like commercial hard metals, the size of the hard material particles ranges from a few to over a hundred of micrometers. In opposite to known materials, the hard component are no monocrystals, but polycrystals sintered directly (without any second phase) from nano-scaled crystallites, providing hardness values (up to 3300HV0.1) far above monocrystals (<2500HV0.1). The required nano scaled raw material will preferably provided by recycling methods. It is expected that the new composites will lead to a considerable increase in the durability of wear protection coatings and abrasively loaded tools due to an improved combination of hardness and ductility (see also http://www.matressource.de/projekte/nanorec/).