NanoSteel Wins R&D 100 Award for Developing Nanocomposite Coatings from Low Cost Wire Feedstock

MAITLAND, Fla. (Monday, September 20, 2004) - The NanoSteel® Company announces that it has won an R&D 100 award for the development of “Revolutionary Nanocomposite Coatings For High Performance Industrial Applications from Low Cost Wire Feedstock.” The development of this next generation technology has resulted in the formation of high performance nanocomposite coatings using conventionally sized wire feedstock in commercially available TWAS thermal spray systems. NanoSteel designs and manufactures advanced nanomaterials that address wear, abrasion, erosion, corrosion and cavitation challenges in industry.

Joseph Buffa, NanoSteel’s CEO, states “As markets are globalized and performance limits are stretched, materials are expected to do more with improved performance but at lower cost. Steel currently occupies a preeminent position in modern society because of the abundance and low cost of iron, its main constituent and just as importantly because of its low life cycle costs with minimal environmental impact and ability to be recycled. Clearly, producing a low cost high tech nanostructured steel with superior combinations of properties is what the world and the globalized market needs.”

While conventional materials contain grains (orientated areas within a material containing a single phase) or phases (a region of material with a distinct structure and composition) which vary in size anywhere from hundreds of microns (1 µm = 10^-6 m) to several millimeters
(1 mm = 10^-3 m), a nanocrystalline material is one that is ordered on a length scale from 10 to 100 nm (1 nm = 10^-9 m). In the materials world, there are two distinct usages of the term nanotechnology. One application of this is called Particulate Materials Nanotechnology which involves producing materials or particles on a dimensional length scale that is nanoscale. Nanoparticulate materials are used for applications as diverse as catalysts for chemical reactions, as pigments for paints, as UV absorption particles in lotions, and are the basis for future nanomachines in what has been termed the ‘Feynman Vision’. The other class of nanomaterials technology, which is the basis of this award is called Bulk Materials Nanotechnology and involves shrinking the microstructural scale (i.e. phase/grain size) down to the nanoscale regime. The ability to develop nanoscale microstructures in bulk materials is the focus of NanoSteel and allows its technology to be implemented on an industrial scale not as a specialty product but as mainstream technology.

Dr. Daniel Branagan, NanoSteel’s CTO states, “After several millennia and such extensive research, conventional wisdom suggests that future developments in steel are part of the past and that its full range of properties have been developed and exploited. But, we believe in an alternative future, where research in nanostructured steels will enable combinations of properties never before achieved while maintaining cost performance advantages.”

The development of Super Hard Steel® (SHS) nanostructured steel coatings for the TWAS thermal spray process was enabled by developing specialized steel compositions with sufficiently low critical cooling rate for metallic glass formation resulting in the formation of amorphous or partially devitrified nanocomposite structures upon solidification. Since the devitrification occurs at low fractions of the melting temperature (≈ 0.5Tm), where diffusion is limited and where the driving force, due to the metastable nature of glass state, is extremely high, the result is a very high nucleation frequency with limited time for grain growth before impingement between neighboring grains. The as-sprayed microstructure is characterized by a glass matrix containing starburst shaped boride and carbide crystallites. The heat treated fully devitrified microstructures consist of a three-phase matrix consisting of α-iron, carbide and boride phases on a structural length scale averaging 80 nm in size.

The chief advantage of this approach, in contrast with other nanotech approaches, is that the feedstock wire is physically identical to conventional feedstock, thereby eliminating the spraying and handling problems normally associated with nanoscale particulate materials. The TWAS thermal spray process itself offers several advantages including the ability to deposit coatings at a fraction of the cost of HVOF technology and is more user friendly for field use, particularly to coating large surface areas. Dr. Brian Meacham, NanoSteel’s R&D Director says, “The ability to develop nanoscale composite coatings while processing in air using conventional TWAS thermal spray guns is revolutionary and results in coatings with unique combinations of compelling properties.”

Michael Breitsameter, NanoSteel’s VP of Marketing and Business Development, says “Since winning this award, we have not backed off but have continued to develop new cored wires for our customers’ pressing needs and expect the launch of a new high corrosion version of our standard wire, SHS 7570, to be announced later this fall that will offer superior corrosion resistance to expensive nickel based superalloys.”

NanoSteel was founded by Military Commercial Technologies (MILCOM) in July 2002. The technology to develop nanostructured steel and the original intellectual property came out of research performed at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) USDOE which was partially funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The previous research won an R&D 100 award in 2001 for the development of nanocomposite coating through the development of conventionally sized powder feedstock in the HVOF spray process. The research to enable the 2004 R&D 100 award was completed at NanoSteel’s Nanomaterials Research Institute located in Idaho Falls only a few miles from INEEL. “We are, of course, proud of NanoSteel's roots at the INEEL. It is really great to see the caliber of innovation that continues as NanoSteel moves its growing product lines into commercial markets,” said Ray Barnes, INEEL Technology Outreach Director. “INEEL's relationship with NanoSteel serves us both well, and their presence in our community contributes to the image of Idaho as a great place for high tech companies to grow.”

R&D Magazine has sponsored the international R&D 100 Awards program for the last 42 years. According to R&D magazine, “The winning of an R&D 100 Award provides a mark of excellence known to industry, government, and academia as proof that the product is one of the most innovative ideas of the year.” TNC will receive its award at the Navy Pier in Chicago in October 2004. For more information about the R&D 100 awards program and this year's winners, access the web site at www.rdmag.com/scripts/default.asp.

For more information about NanoSteel and its new wire products visit www.nanosteelco.com.