Up Close: New Jersey Advanced Technology Center for Surface-Engineered Materials
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and David Sarnoff Research Center (an independent contract research center). AIMS is administered by a board of trustees consisting of senior administrators representing each member institution and has been presided over by Harold J. Raveche, the president of Stevens Institute of Technology. As director of AIMS and ATC-SEM, I am supported at the programmatic level by program councils on which there is a representative from each of the member institutions. Consonant with its mission, ATC-SEM also has an industrial advisory board composed of technical leaders representing a broad cross-section of New Jersey's industries. The development and transfer of technology on a shared basis by industries and universities is central to the intention of the original Bond. The rest of this article focuses on the ATC-SEM. Nanoscale Materials From its inception the scientific thrust of ATC-SEM has been on materials, with a concentration on properties which are mediated by processes at surfaces and interfaces; these cover a broad spectrum and include micromachining, plasma processing, surface modification, advanced film deposition processes, corrosion, and tribology. One of the most mature programs, nanophase materials, is centered at Rutgers but involves material evaluation at Stevens and connections with a variety of industrial organizations. Bernard H. Kear, of the Nanophase Materials Research Laboratory at Rutgers has
been working with researchers from the Exxon Corporation on new ways to make ultrafine powders of cobalt tungsten carbide, a material used in cutting tools and other wear resistant devices. Nanophase materials are of great interest to scientists and engineers because of their unusual properties which result from having so many of their atoms lying on the edges of tiny grains (less than 100 run in diameter). One challenge of commercialization is producing large quantities of material, which must be consolidated without coarsening and loss of performance. As a direct result of the work of Kear and Larry E. Candlish, formerly of Exxon, the manufacture of nanophase materials has moved out of the laboratory and into production. The Rutgers scientists found cobalt and tungsten compounds that could be mixed and dispersed in water, aerosolized, and then spray dried to produce extremely fine mixtures of tungsten and cobalt salts of a variety of compositions. Passing a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen over the metal salts in an industrial fluidized bed reactor results in particles of tungsten carbide less than 50 nm in diameter embedded in larger grains of cobalt. A new company called Nanodyne was set up as a joint venture between Rutgers and Procedyne, a local manufacturer of industrial fluidized-bed reactors. Nanodyne is now producing hundreds of kilograms of nanophase cobalt tungsten carbide every year. Nanophase cobalt tungsten carbide is substantially harder than the conventional material. Many industrial uses are foreseen including the surface hardening of drill bits and industrial knives. Nanodyne is colla
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