Argonne researchers
Osman Eryilmaz (left) and Gerald Jeka (right) recover industrial parts from the
large-scale
ultra-fast boriding furnace after a successful boriding treatment. This process
for extending
the lifetime of
mechanical parts, which just received its U.S. patent, saves time, money and
energy
compared to
conventional technique, and even alleviates environmental concerns
(August 12, 2015) The
metal components that make up industrial machines are subject to tremendous
wear and tear. But a newly patented technology by Distinguished Fellow Ali Erdemir
and his team at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory
could greatly extend the lifetime of mechanical parts.
To protect machinery and increase longevity, several methods
of surface hardening have been developed including pack-boriding, which lays
down a boride layer on metal pieces through the diffusion of boron.
Erdemir’s work is a departure from this conventional
boriding technique, which is both time-consuming and energy-intensive. Instead,
his team came up with a process for ultra-fast boriding, a process that saves
time, money and energy, and even alleviates environmental concerns.
In three years, Erdemir and his team took an abstract
concept and turned it into an industrial-scale furnace that can deposit a
boride layer 100 micrometers thick in half an hour.
To achieve this same thickness, pack-boriding would need
approximately 10 hours.
Now, just a few years after completing the process,
Erdemir’s group has been awarded a utility patent covering the ultra-fast
nature of the technology, the range of materials that can be treated and
several specific steps in the process of ultra-fast boriding.
Erdemir described the new technology as “clean and green,
cost-effective and energy-efficient.”