2009 R&D 100 Winner

Wear and scuffing are common causes of catastrophic failure in components frequently exposed to heavy loading, such as earth-moving and mining equipment. A coating that helps reduce material shock would greatly enhance the lifetime of the equipment, which is why nitride, carbide, and diamond-like coatings were developed. A new alternative, Superhard and Slick Coating (SSC), developed by a team of researchers from Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Ill., Galleon International Co., Brighton, Mich., and Hauzer Technocoating, Venlo, The Netherlands, differs from these existing coatings in its chemistry, which consists primarily of molybdenum and copper, along with silver, antimony, and tin. It is a designer coating; its composition was predicted by a crystal-chemical model proposed by the coatings developers. In laboratory and engine tests, SSC reduced friction by up to 80% compared to uncoated steel surfaces and virtually eliminated wear under severe boundary-lubricated sliding regimes. Scuffing was too low in typical testing to be measured by test machines. SSC can be produced at moderate temperatures (200ºC to 400ºC) on almost any kind of metallic substrates at high growth rates and, unlike other physical-vapor-deposited hard coatings, it does not have a columnar morphology.

Technology
Coating

Developers
Argonne National Laboratory
Galleon International Co.
Hauzer Technocoating