Super-Slick

Abstract

This article discusses that the Argonne National Laboratory is beginning real-world tests of a carbon-based substance that has set records for low friction. An extremely hard ultralow-friction carbon coating, developed at Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, IL, may offer a way to address friction and wear. Introduced about a year and a half ago, the new coating is nearly friction less under inert conditions. Argonne is working with three development partners, which have signed three-year cooperative research and development agreements to transfer this technology to industry. Two of the companies are working with engine applications; one is a commercial coater, adapting the near-frictionless material to its coating process. One of Argonne’s partners, Front Edge Technology Inc., an industrial coater in Baldwin Park, CA, is using a plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition process with the coating. Potential applications of the coating are in the mechanical drive portion of the engine, in which the reciprocating piston motions are converted into a rotating shaft motion.