Objective The project is concerned with the use of new milling techniques to produce metals and alloys in fine structures - to dimensions down to less than 100 nm - i.e. nanophased and ultrafine-grained materials. Such materials can be used to meet a market need, such as in increasing machining life in tools and for decreasing tool replacement time, e.g. during machining and wire drawing. In the last 20 years a new concept has been progressively developed for the synthesis and production of materials - Mechanomaking. It comprises high energy milling of elements or compounds at room temperature during which transformations are made using reactions, alloying, polymorphous transformations, grain refinements and composition control.This project moved from the scientific and technical feasibility proven in a previous SCIENCE research contract aiming:- to scale up an existing laboratory size machine to production capacity- to develop demonstration products and processes (all materials will have finally an ultrafine or nanophased structure) such as high speed tool steels- to recycle used materials.It has already been established that the processing costs of mechanomaking, projected to an industrial scale, would be quite attractive and compare favourably even with the added value of materials having structural features far from mechanomade materials (which are nanophased -<20 nm- in the powders and at least ultrafine-grained-< 100 nm- in the compacted solid).Being a new processing technique, it can be used in many other sectors (industrial, health care, environment etc.) to improve the performance of existing materials/components, or to manufacture new materials designed to have specific properties. The technique has very low environmental impact (essentially due to room temperature processing) producing materials in working conditions that are greatly improved with respect to present and competing technologies.There are other and wider potential benefits such as:- EcologicalThe low temperature ball-milling process to produce fine powders produces negligible emissions. There is minimum wastage of materials with near 100% conversion expected. New materials and catalysts for use in emission control and sensors are expected. Recycling of used materials is also expected.- EmploymentMechanomaking will represent a new industrial growth sector - with direct and indirect employment benefits.- SocialThe new materials from this project will enable improved products in health care, e.g. implant prosthesis and for dental applications. Fields of science engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringwaste managementwaste treatment processesrecyclingengineering and technologymechanical engineeringmanufacturing engineeringsubtractive manufacturingengineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringsensorssocial scienceseconomics and businessbusiness and managementemploymentmedical and health sciencesmedical biotechnologyimplants Keywords Adaptation Energy Hardware Large Companies Manufacturing Industry Research and Technology Organisations SME Universities Programme(s) FP4-INNOVATION - Specific programme for the dissemination and exploitation of the results of activities in the field of research, technological development and demonstration, 1994-1998 Topic(s) 1.2 - UNIVERSITY AND RESEARCH CENTRE TO INDUSTRY 1.3 - VALIDATION AND SPIN-OFF OF EARLIER COMMUNITY RTD RESULTS Call for proposal Data not available Funding Scheme CSC - Cost-sharing contracts Coordinator CSGI CONSORZIO PER LO SVILUPPO DEI SISTEMI A GRANDE INTERFASE Address Cotonifico 108 50121 Firenze Italy See on map Links Website Opens in new window EU contribution € 0,00 Participants (4) Sort alphabetically Sort by EU Contribution Expand all Collapse all INDUSTRIAL MATERIALS TECHNOLOGY GMBH (IMT) Germany EU contribution € 0,00 Address See on map INSTITUT NATIONAL POLYTECHNIQUE DE LORRAINE France EU contribution € 0,00 Address See on map MBN NANOMATERIALIA SPA Italy EU contribution € 0,00 Address Via bortolan 42 Carbonera See on map Links Website Opens in new window Tooling International Ltd GB EU contribution € 0,00 Address See on map
