Diamond Hard Surfaces: Making Surface Coatings Sustainable

In our fast-paced industrialized world, reliability of equipment and products under varying temperature, pressure, friction/wear conditions and chemical resistance is critical. It is also imperative to ensure longevity and protection of equipment. Every moving part creates friction and wear which in turn consumes energy and reduces efficiency. As surfaces are the first barrier of protection, it is important to maximize performance and increase lifetime of equipment to ensure sustainability.

Surface coatings have served as enhancement mechanisms for quite sometime now and have almost become indispensable in many high-performance applications. Diamond Hard Surfaces, a UK based startup are contributing to this industry with their patented, low temperature processing technology for coating thermoplastics. In our conversation with Chris H Walker (CEO), we captured important insights about how their patented plasma assisted chemical vapor deposition technique is making surface coating more sustainable.

?Low temperature coating in a net zero process

"I was scouting for opportunities to help early-stage businesses and I came across Diamond Hard Surfaces, a company looking to raise money for their coating solution using carbon. They had a promising technology and I decided to invest in the company. We are one of the only companies that can coat amorphous diamond to thicknesses as high as 70-80 microns," Chris began.

The patented technology is essentially a coating process that can virtually coat any sort of substrate; composites, ceramics or metals. The low temperature process (as low as 80°C) produces a coating that is electrically resistant and thermally conductive. Diamond coating is a niche offering and excels at making surfaces hard and wear resistant. Additionally, it also imparts infrared transparency, low friction and very importantly for any coating; great substrate adhesion.

The patented process is based on the principle of Penning discharge (charged particles are trapped between electric fields under vacuum and discharged at low temperatures), where coating takes place in conventional vacuum in presence of an electric charge. "Our technology is suited very well for coating thermoplastics like PEEK, PEK and Polyimide materials with a wear resistant coating, imparting low friction properties in the process," continued Chris.

Types of coating and applications

Diamond Hard Surface’s proprietary coating Adamant? is available in four different grades. Each grade is designed for different applications and finishing conditions. The process occurs at low temperature, enabling variation in thickness of the coatings.

"Our patented coating technique makes it easier to find applications across industries. We can easily adapt the coating properties based on the type of application and required conditions," explained Chris.

Green for Green strategy

"We have a very sustainable coating process as it requires no heat during the process. We efficiently use specialized precursors ( a compound added in a chemical reaction which produces another compound), which produces a lot of carbon relative to its mass. Our sustainability evaluation revealed that we are very close to net zero with only 60 tons of carbon produced in a year looking at tier 1 &2 impacts. Our products are based on the Green for Green strategy which we initiated years ago, with inherently low environmental impact," added Chris.

Diamond Hard Surfaces has developed their green strategy by addressing three different areas of their coating process.

Material-use efficiency: The process of coating uses energy efficiently and requires low amounts of source materials for the process. The is a very high transformation of sources materials into the coating.

Coated products reduce environmental impact: Low friction in moving parts translates to lower fuel consumption and low CO2 emission. It also efficiently prolongs equipment lifetime.

Minimal waste and no unfriendly bi-products : The coating process is environmentally friendly as the coated surface requires no pre or post processing and produces no toxic gases/processing media.

"With our low energy, versatile processing technology, we have initiated a green revolution in the surface coating domain across various industries and applications," concluded Chris.

?About?Growth Garage

To meet the challenges of tomorrow we have to nurture the visionaries of today

Growth Garage is the business incubator from?Mitsubishi Chemical Group. Our mission is to support and grow new ideas using our technologies and advanced engineering materials to help tackle some of today's biggest engineering challenges. We are offering the opportunity for engineers and innovators to pitch us their ideas. Successful applicants will receive our full support, expertise and materials to help develop their projects from initial prototype to final product.