September 15, 2021
In partnership with Micro Materials. Established in 1988 Micro Materials has continually been at the forefront of innovation, with a pioneering approach leading to the world’s first nanoscale impact tester, commercial high-temperature nanoindentation stage and liquid cell.
We’re very proud to introduce our newest venture here at Surface Ventures (please pardon the joke, I couldn’t resist); our newsletter: Modern Surface. This fortnightly newsletter will bring you the latest in the surface engineering field from important papers to exciting news from our partners. Additionally, we’ll be bringing you a selection of productivity and general interest items from the internet, a useful app suggestion and one of our favourite webcomics to finish. Before we begin, I’d like to introduce myself so you know who will be curating this content on behalf of the Surface Ventures team. I’m Dr Sam McMaster, Event Manager at Surface Ventures. I completed my PhD last year in the nanomechanical analysis of diamond-like carbon coatings for tribological performance. I’m now at Coventry University as part of a knowledge transfer project (KTP), working on developing surface engineered methods to improve the lifespan of components in contact with solder. Thank you all for joining us on this journey so far, this first year and a half with Surface Ventures has been incredible and I’m looking forward to the future as we continue to bring you more content.
Graphitic materials are currently a hot topic of research. Graphitic Carbon Nitride (g-C3N4)-Based Photocatalysts for Artificial Photosynthesis and Environmental Remediation: Are We a Step Closer To Achieving Sustainability? by Ong et al. presents a review of a fascinating conjugated polymer that has gained attention as a metal-free and visible-light-responsive photocatalyst for solar energy conversion and environmental remediation.
Network graphs are a great way to visualise the connections between research papers (and other forms of data). This graph presents the similarity of various topics to the one used to find this paper (surface modification) related to common authors, publications and journals/conferences. You can explore the topic of surface modification further here.
In the journal Emergent Materials, the state-of-the-art in elevated temperature nanomechanics of coatings for high-temperature energy applications was recently reviewed by Micro Materials’ Director of Materials Research, Ben Beake. In the article key factors influencing accuracy of the high temperature measurements were identified with strategies to improve data accuracy. Applications were chosen highlighting their differing requirements in terms of maximum temperature, indenter material choice and test environment:- (i) coating of components for aero-engines, (ii) solid oxide fuel cells and actuators (iii) structural and radiation tolerant coatings for nuclear applications and (iv) high-performance machining of hard-to-cut aerospace materials.
Coatings for the last of these have been tested with the Micro Materials NanoTest Vantage system using boron nitride indenters in argon gas environment. The figure below shows how H3/E2, a measure of the resistance to plastic deformation, varies with temperature, with improved high temperature properties for Si-containing coatings.
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The article is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s42247-021-00255-w or there is a read-only version using the following SharedIt link: https://rdcu.be/cnrSt. For more information, please click the link to visit our LinkedIn page atwww.linkedin.com/company/micro-materials-ltd
