An innovative solid lubricant based nano-dimensional coatings for industrial production

Friction is the force that occurs between two contact surfaces in relative motion, whereas wear is the phenomenon of mechanical and/or chemical damage that affects the quality of the materials in contact with each other. Friction is found everywhere: transportation, industrial, energy, motion bearing, automotive, manufacture and equipment and has several important consequences: It induces energy losses and CO2 emissions. Altogether, friction accounts for about 20% of the world’s total energy consumption and 3% is used to remanufacture worn parts and spare equipment due to wear and wear-related failures. The total costs of friction and wear globally are € 2.53 Billion and the total CO2 emissions due to friction and wear are 8,120 MtCO2. Studies carried out in several countries indicate that by taking advantage of the new surface, materials, and lubrication technologies for friction reduction and wear protection (tribological advances) in vehicles, machinery and other equipment worldwide, energy losses due to friction and wear could potentially be reduced by 40% in the long term (15 years) and by 18% in the short term (8 years). On global scale, these savings would amount to 1.4% of the GDP annually and 8.7% of the total energy consumption. Furthermore, today, considerable effort is being devoted to producing increasingly more energy efficient machines and vehicles, not only for economic reasons, but also in order to face new challenges regarding global climate change. To address the frictional and wear challenge, TVARC has developed a new coating process, namely, Thermionic Vacuum Arc (TVA), a solid lubricant-based in which nano-dimensional thin film of material (i.e. Boron, Graphite, Diamond like carbon, hexagonal Boron-nitride, Molybdenum disulphide, Titanium Nitride, Silicon Carbide, Zirconium dioxide or Aluminum oxide) is directly applied to surfaces in order to provide improve frictional behaviours between materials. The innovative and disruptive solution represents a real shift in the sector with crucial economic impact on the entire industry. The TVA coating process is a major suitable method to become a powerful coating technology in industries, becoming an alternative to the traditional solid-lubricant technology and appears as the new standardizing solution for current and future lubrication systems.

Based on work completed to date, we identified the main challenges for the next stage of our product development that forms the content for the next innovation project. The challenges involve product/technological development, including the production of 5 different TVA systems and the incorporation of a plasma cleaning unit, in order to avoid the presence of impurity atoms, improving coverage, stability and anti-friction properties. In addition, the process will be fully automatized, providing companies the best coating solution for each application. We extensively evaluated our options for scaling and distributing our future production, adapting our installations to be able to produce coating services and assemble TVA machines. We stablished collaboration agreements with strong market players to validate our technology. These collaborations will also let us disseminate TVA performance through conferences and workshops, increasing their presence in the lubricants market and allowing TVARC reach a vast number of clients. The commercial feasibility highlighted a large TAM and identified three main regions to be distributed and sold worldwide mainly by our commercial partners (Europe, the USA and China & India). Commercialization will be enhanced by setting up a sales office and a R&D development center in Italy and a sales office in the USA.

TVARC is the first company to provide TVA technology to the market. While other methods to reduce friction (i.e. grease or solid lubricants) are limited, the innovative solution proposed by TVARC will offer the possibility to numerous industries to be equipped with the latest state-of-the-art technique reducing friction and improving wear resistance to components: up to 30% friction reduction (3x higher than current competing solution). The green and safe environment and the energy efficient method of deposition together with the improved tribological properties that TVARC offers are all related to the concept of “green tribology” which has recently been introduced and looks at minimizing friction, and wear, reducing lubrication and maintaining green engineering principles. The role of this emerging area has been highlighted in numerous papers and is expected to be crucial in the future sustainable development of the economy. Finally, the controllable and simultaneous deposition of different materials (multilayer deposition) that TVARC performs, has a broad potential application in the development of advanced materials (i.e. metamaterials, composites, hetero and homogenous materials), providing market opportunities in a sector that is expected to have a high impact in world´s economy and people´s life. Thus, the proposal has been specially thought to meet the new high standards in lubrication and it becomes a radical step forward in the evolution of nano-technology engineering. This solution capable of replacing conventional procedures by greener, more efficient and with better performance can be effectively standardized across multiple industries to address the frictional and wear challenge, while offering new opportunities in the emerging nano-technologies industry.

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TVARC (An innovative solid lubricant based nano-dimensional coatings for industrial production)

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