Ceramics and glass business news of the week
Here is what we are hearing:
Integration of Hanse Chemie Inc. USA, into Evonik Goldschmidt Corp.
As of Jan. 1, 2012, the US Hanse Chemie business of Hanse Chemie AG and Nanoresins AG, has been merged into Evonik Goldschmidt Corp. At the same time, Hanse Chemie Inc. USA has been dissolved as a legal entity. The acquisition of the two firms by Evonik was finalized on May 12, 2011. Both companies are headquartered in Germany and produce raw materials and components for the manufacture of sealants, adhesives, molding and casting compounds, and other products. Most of the Hanse Chemie Inc. business is incorporated into the Interface & Performance business line whose activities surrounding the silicone specialties are directed at a variety of industrial markets. Activities in the paint and coatings industry, especially those concerning nanocomposites, extremely fine-particle silicas, are now part of the Coatings & Additives Business Unit of Evonik.
3M launches high density versions of its embedded capacitance material at DesignCon 2012
3M announced the initial availability of its high-capacitance Embedded Capacitance Material at DesignCon 2012, providing design engineers a new way to improve power integrity and reduce electromagnetic interference. Unlike previous 3M ECM versions, which have a maximum capacitance density of approximately 10 nF per square inch, and some existing commercial competitor offerings, which have a maximum capacitance density of approximately 6 nF per square inch, the 3M ECM high-capacitance density solutions offer a capacitance density range from 20 up to 40 nF per square inch, making it the one of the highest capacitance density, halogen-free ECM solutions on the market. This helps design engineers provide hi-fidelity signals, high-signal-to-noise ratio in radio frequencies and higher speed digital signals in a variety of high-performance applications such as small form factor computer hardware, high-performance RF boards, microphones, integrated circuit packaging and consumer electronics.
Mantec consolidates ceramic activities
Mantec, the British technology group with a portfolio of manufacturing businesses based in Stoke-on-Trent, has announced that with immediate effect the three companies previously operated as subsidiaries of the technical ceramic division have now merged into a single, business - Mantec Technical Ceramics Ltd (www.mantectechnicalceramics.com). The three companies involved are Taylor Tunnicliff, Ceramic Gas Products and Fairey Filtration Systems. They have in any case been operating under common management, from the same premises, for the past four years and so this a logical step to take. While the name of Mantec Technical Ceramics will now be the one associated with all administrative, legal, accounting and sales channels, leading brand names owned and manufactured by the group will naturally be retained.
Polycrystalline ceramics with cubic spinel structure transmit well in the visible and mid IR wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum. ALON and magnesia spinel are especially attractive, and are leading lightweight transparent armor candidates for future combat systems. These have enormous performance advantage over glass and justify their rapid development. Surmet achieves full density and transparency using the conventional sinter/hot isostatic Ppress process that includes green body formation and high-temperature sintering, followed by HIPping.
Molycorp Inc. announced that Molibdenos y Metales S.A. (Molymet), the world’s largest processor of the strategic metals molybdenum and rhenium, has agreed to invest approximately $390 million in the company in exchange for 12.5 million shares of Molycorp common stock. The price of the Molycorp shares to be purchased were valued based on the 20-day volume weighted average share price as of the close of trading on Jan. 30, 2012 plus a 10% premium. Molycorp has agreed to appoint to its board of directors upon the closing of the proposed investment a nominee to be designated by Molymet.
Thermablok aerogel insulation strips installed in new ‘green’ US Border Patrol station in Texas
Crews working construction on the environmentally sustainable Fabens US Border Patrol Station in Clint, Texas have just completed installing 21,000 linear feet of Thermablok aerogel insulating strips on studs throughout the 51,000 square foot facility. The strips reduce thermal bridging, the prime cause of energy loss in buildings. When RVK Architects of San Antonio collaborated with Jacobs Engineering Group of Houston to design the eco-friendly structure already years in the planning, they included Thermablok in the original design. The strips went up easily since they have peel and stick adhesive already attached to the back of the product. The facility also is fitted with solar heaters, sky lights, glazed windows and energy efficient equipment for a low-carbon footprint.
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Army awards SBIR to use NDE to reduce missile dome fabrication costs
High clarity and concentricity are necessary features of aluminum oxynitride multimode seeker domes being developed for the Joint Air-to-Ground Missile. Credit: Surmet.
The business end of a missile is not the exploding part. Rather, it’s the guidance system that gets the missile to its target, or at least that’s what the guys who make the front end of the missile will tell you.
A critical piece of the guidance system is the dome on the leading tip of the missile. Multimode seeker domes are passive components (they don’t “do” anything), but they must meet stringent property and tolerance requirements. Multimode seeker domes are so named because they are optically transparent in the laser, IR and RF wavelength ranges.
There is significant interest in these domes because the Army and Navy have been developing a new weapon, the Joint Air-to-Ground Missile. In particular, aluminum oxynitride or spinel are candidate materials for JAGM dome systems.
The JAGM is being developed to replace the Hellfire, Javelin and TOW missiles according to an Aviation Week Aerospace Daily and Defense Report story. The military is designing the new missiles for air launch from various fixed-wing or rotary-wing aircraft mounts—six platforms in total.
Lockheed Martin and Raytheon-Boeing have been competing for the JAGM engineering and manufacturing development contract. An InsideDefense.com story reports that the Pentagon was planning to spend $1.7 billion for development and $6.5 billion to procure 20,000 missiles for the Army and 15,000 for the Navy/Marine Corps.
But, back in September, just when DOD was getting ready to decide which company would get the nod, the Army and Navy recommended terminating the program, apparently in response to budget constraints forced by the August debt ceiling agreement. Details are vague, but it looks like the JAGM program may have been downsized to an extended R&D program. At the very least, the Army is still awarding SBIR contracts, including one recently to Surmet of Burlington, Mass. to develop cost-effective multimode seeker domes.
According to Surmet chief technology officer, Lee Goldman, fabrication of domes is very costly because of the combined demands for very high optical clarity, homogeneous index of refraction and tight tolerance specifications.
Domes are made from powders pressed into net shape and fired. After firing, the domes are 100% dense and optically transparent, but the surfaces are rough, like ground glass. Surfaces are ground and polished to a mirror smooth finish. Also, the finished domes must have a high degree of concentricity to prevent distortion of the transmitted wavefronts.
“It is common practice in the industry, because of the tight tolerances, to do an inspection polish,” according to Goldman to evaluate the optical quality. Between the hardness of aluminum oxynitride or spinel and the extremely tight dimensional tolerances, inspection polishing adds significant cost to the domes.
Not surprisingly, the military is interested in know whether any cost-savings is possible. Thus, the goal of the Army SBIR is to develop a nondestructive evaluation method to assess the optical quality of the domes prior to inspection polishing. By doing so, the company believes it can reduce the cost of domes by up to 20%. There is a lot of potential savings because if the JAGM goes into production, 30,000-40,000 domes would be needed. With the NDE method, a representative sampling of domes could be testing quickly and cost-effectively.
Surmet has been working with the Army since 2002 on a variety of transparent ceramics for military applications.
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Army seeks $7.1B in utility-scale renewable energy projects, targets 25% of consumption
Ribbon-cutting ceremony of Ft. Carson (Colo.) solar array. Credit: Army.
Apparently the beginning of this effort was announced at a conference last month, but I recently learned (h/t TPMIdeaLab) that the Army is making a major step to energy independence — and “enhanced” energy security — with a 10-year, $7.1 billion “investment” in a portfolio of large-scale alternative or renewable energy installations. This effort is expected to create an infrastructure that has an annual power capacity of 2.1 million megawatt hours.
To guide the work, the Army has created an Energy Initiatives Office and EIO Task Force (assuming it met its goal to be operational by Sept. 15).
The EIO Task Force will work within the Army to streamline existing acquisition processes and leverage industry for the execution of large-scale renewable and alternative energy projects on Army installations. Army installations currently are pursuing renewable energy infrastructure, but often lack needed expertise. The EIO Task Force will fill this expertise gap and provide resources focused on working with the private sector to execute large-scale renewable energy projects. This is expected to result in increased interest by project developers and improved financial options for the Army.
Rather than actually build its own facilities, the energy initiative looks like it is primarily going to take the form of developing long-term contracts with private companies, which would shoulder the actual capital investments. In a news conference, Katherine Hammack, assistant secretary of the Army for installations environment and energy, said, “What we are doing is leveraging the authorities given by Congress, and have identified that the Army is looking for about $7 billion of private sector investment on Army installations,” Hammack said. The price tag is basically an estimate of what it will take in private investments for the Army to reach its goal of 25 percent renewables by 2025.”
As the EIO website emphatically notes, “We’ve got the land and the demand!”
Regarding the task force and its responsibilities, Hammack said the group is composed of “focused individuals whose primary task is to work with the private sector to develop these kind of renewable and alternative energy projects. …To attract the private investments, we need to have biddable projects - we have to do our homework. We have to do our due diligence to make sure these projects have the appropriate information, facts and background that is necessary for a developer and for the finance community to invest in.”
Hammack also said the idea for the Army-private sector projects is that they would be “ focused entirely on [the continental United States] and large-scale renewable, almost utility-scale renewable projects that would offset all or part of the energy needs of a permanent installation. When we are looking at projects, we are looking at about the 10-megawatt size, plus or minus a little bit. Or it could be larger. We are looking at large-scale renewable energy projects, on Army installations.”
I suspect Hammack is trying to get in front of slew of separate base proposals and bring some uniformity, expertise, leveraging power and approval speed that otherwise wouldn’t be available. The Army currently has 126 ongoing renewable energy projects.
“We have great individuals at our garrisons who are working hard to advance this, but the energy initiatives task force will be staffed with experts in finance, renewable technologies, project management, and work in concert with the garrisons to expedite these projects so they can be executed in appropriate time frames,” Hammack said.
Secretary of the Army John McHugh said in August, “What we are looking toward is a better partnership and an infusion quite frankly of private-sector investments where it would be a win-win situation.” He indicated the developers would also be free to sell excess electricity to non-Army customers.
This effort is part of the Army’s previously announced Net Zero program, which was unveiled in April as an energy-conserving program for bases to only use as much energy and water as they create or recycle by 2020. The Army signed a memorandum of agreement for an enhanced-use lease to begin development of a 500-megawatt solar power facility at Ft. Irwin, Calif., and Ft. Bliss (El Paso, Texas) has announced that the base is planning on building a 20-megawatt solar facility, and was trying to lure a $1.5 billion private sector investment. It’s not clear how the Ft. Irwin or Ft. Bliss plans fits in with the new announcement.
The task force has announced plans for an Oct. 27, 2011, “industry day” at Ft. Bliss, plus a task force “summit” Nov. 3 in Washington, D.C.
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Ceramics and glass business news of the week
Here’s what we are hearing:
Duo’s chemistry makes it possible: natural gas produced from biomass
H.C. Starck and Clausthaler Umwelttechnik-Institut (Germany) have joined forces to successfully develop a completely new generation of catalyzers and process technology for the production of substitute natural gas from biomass as a renewable energy source. The two groups have engineered a range of catalyzers with an oxide base containing cobalt, molybdenum, and aluminum, which have been successfully tested under laboratory and pilot plant conditions. The catalyzers proved to be robust and reclaimable, even under the most unfavorable conditions, having achieved high yields with which the synthesis of substitute natural gas is possible.
Indiana lands turbine blade company
A wind turbine blade manufacturer plans to open two facilities in southern Indiana with intentions of creating up to 400 jobs by 2014. Gov. Mitch Daniels has announced a two-phased project involving GBT USA Inc., a unit of Netherlands-based Global Blade Technology. The company is leasing space at the former Whirlpool plant in Evansville for an engineering design and production facility, which the city says will have nearly 40 employees by next year. The Indiana Economic Development Corp. says GBT also plans to build an additional southern Indiana facility in 2013 to produce composite rotor blades for wind turbine generators.
Company’s ceramic bearings offer flexibility to automation and advanced manufacturing industries
Boca Bearing Company is introducing a new line of full ceramic bearings, ceramic hybrid bearings and lubricants catered towards the automation and advanced manufacturing industries. Its ceramic bearings can be used in varieties of manufacturing environments ranging from extreme temperatures, high speeds to heavy loads. Ceramic hybrid ball bearings use steel races and ceramic balls. Ceramic balls weigh up to 40% less than steel balls. This reduces centrifugal loading and skidding, so hybrid ceramic bearings can operate up to 50% faster than conventional bearings. This means that the outer race groove exerts less force inward against the ball as the bearing spins. This reduction in force reduces the friction and rolling resistance. The lighter ball allows the bearing to spin faster, and uses less energy to maintain its speed. Ceramic hybrid ball bearings have ceramic balls in place of steel balls. They are constructed with steel inner and outer rings, ceramic balls and are known as hybrids.
MesoCoat Inc. opens new metal cladding and coating facility with one of the most powerful arc lamps
MesoCoat Inc. currently occupies two facilities in Ohio with a third 11,000 sq. ft. facility under-construction (expected production start date, Jan. 2012). This new Eastlake facility will be their fourth facility in Ohio within a 5 mile radius. It will primarily be used for cladding plates and components for the oil and gas, mining, and shipbuilding industries. The facility is designed to accommodate two metal fusion cladding lines for CermaClad and thermal spray coating cells for PComP, including a metallurgical and analytical lab. At this facility, MesoCoat will be installing a 600 kW fusion cladding arc lamp system, one of the most powerful arc lamps ever manufactured. MesoCoat acquired this 600 kW arc lamp under a joint development agreement with a multinational heavy equipment manufacturer; where MesoCoat will work towards developing wear and corrosion-resistant cladding using the arc lamp for equipment and components manufactured by them.
Toyota’s Collaborative Safety Research Center today announced 10 new research initiatives and new research agreements with six leading North American universities and research institutions to enhance the development, testing and implementation of new automotive safety innovations across North America. The institutions include MIT’s AgeLab, the Transportation Active Safety Institute, Indiana University/Purdue University Indianapolis, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University,
Wake Forest School of Medicine, Washtenaw Area Transportation Study and Wayne State University School of Medicine.
CoorsTek acquires advanced ceramics business from BAE Systems
CoorsTek, the world’s largest technical ceramics manufacturer, today officially announced the purchase of BAE Systems’ Vista, California advanced ceramics facilities. These three facilities total 106,000 square feet - adding to the more than three million square feet of manufacturing floor space already in place worldwide. These facilities develop and fabricate lightweight ceramic armor systems, semiconductor components and assemblies and industrial components. Specifically, they manufacture hot-pressed boron carbides, silicon carbides, aluminum nitrides and other advanced ceramic materials.
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Other materials stories that may be of interest
Investigators at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have created strange optical effects, including corkscrew-like vortex beams, by reflecting light off a flat, nanostructured surface. Credit: Nanfang Yu, SEAS.
Check ‘em out:
How Apple could revolutionize solar
Flight time of Stalker small UAS quadrupled to 8 hours with ruggedized propane SOFC
3D lithography by rapid curing of the liquid instabilities at nanoscale
Students: Apply for the Bernard S. Baker Student Award for fuel cell research or new Sir Alistair Pilkington Award for glass research
Rolla researchers predict they can cut cooling costs by 40 percent
Nanopillars on surface of thin-film silicon could lead to better solar cells
Optoelectronics appear as hopeful application for graphene
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