battenfeld-cincinnati unleashes maximum-resistance STC coating

International Extrusion specialist battenfeld-cincinnati has unleashed the power of its new superior tungsten carbide (STC) coating, offering customers strong anti-wear protection.

The company showcased its range of individual wear counseling at NPE 2015 in Orlando, Florida, which boasts the latest technological solutions with an interesting price-performance ratio for all applications. The STC coating system is ideal for processing both corrosive and strongly abrasive materials, providing customers with maximum wear resistance and a long service life.

The new STC coating for plasticising units in extruders has been developed as the result of an exclusive technology partnership with a coating technology specialist. In this way, battenfeld-cincinnati has become the first extruder manufacturer worldwide to offer a perfect hard metal coating not only for its own products, but also for all other extrusion applications, regardless of the equipment’s brand or maker.

So far, hard metal coatings have been used mainly for high-tech applications such as in aerospace technology, motor sports, the petroleum industry and for drilling and machining equipment.

battenfeld-cincinnati's new coating material combines the abrasion and erosion resistance of TC hard metals with an extremely strong resistance to the acids of chlorine and bromine halides. If desired, the STC coating can be applied either just to certain parts of the screw geometry, or the entire screw can be encapsulated in STC.

Peter Hammer, Vice-President Technology, stated: "The substantially higher wear resistance of the newly developed hard metal coating compared to the conventional interior coatings with a lower tungsten carbide content and softer alloying elements has been repeatedly confirmed by various scientific studies, and also shows excellent results in field tests."

battenfeld-cincinnati already has a number of units in the field throughout Europe and is now looking for customer test sites in the US and Latin America. The battenfeld-cincinnati team is only too happy to inform interested customers about the properties of the new STC coating and explain the advantages and benefits of using it at customers’ production sites.

The tech

The special benefit of the new STC technology is that the tungsten carbides support each other as a result of their extremely high concentration and are also bonded in a hard metal matrix. Soldered or centrifuged coatings currently on the market come with a much lower tungsten carbide content, bonded in a comparatively soft matrix. In contrast to conventional tungsten carbide coatings, the new STC technology features a roughly 30 per cent higher weight proportion of tungsten carbide, which enables the carbides to support each other.

The technical differences or advantages of the innovative STC technology can be described by the facts listed below:

  • ~ 30 per cent higher tungsten carbide content
  • More resilient, harder matrix material
  • Optimised nano particle size for maximised physical attributes
  • Extremely dense, compact surface properties
  • Extremely high degrees of hardness combined with high toughness values
  • Maximum chemical and physical wear resistance for a longer service life
  • The new coating is particularly interesting for PVC compounds with high filler content, PE with abrasive colourants, PP with talcum or fibreglass content, post-consumer regrinds or natural fibre composites.

Wear inspection and counselling as a customer service

For early detection of damage to screws and barrels and prevention of resulting unplanned production standstills, the battenfeld-cincinnati service team offers its customers free-of-charge wear inspection. For this purpose, a battenfeld-cincinnati engineer comes into the customer’s

production hall on site and carries out measurements of wear on barrels and screws over the entire length of the processing unit.

All types of single screw extruders are measured, as well as both parallel and conical twin screw extruders. Following the inspection, the customer receives a report containing overview diagrams and wear data sheets for further analysis and counselling by a battenfeld-cincinnati specialist.

This enables early response in terms of process technology adjustments and/or timely procurement of spare parts to prevent machine failures and production downtimes. As a result, the cost-efficiency of the production plants can be increased significantly.

Tags

The EUREKA Series

EPPM's EUREKA Series touches on the out-of-the-box thinking that may seem peculiar now, but could influence and innovate plastics as we know it in the future.