Amazing new steel coating?

[johnniet]

The link to the new article is here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_885000/885595.stm

Some specific results are posted on the company's website: http://www.zipperling.de/News/corrprax.html

The basic idea is that by coating steel with a new plastic, you can make it extremely rust-resistant. The plastic does NOT simply cover the steel like TiNi. It sounds like it would work much the same way that aluminum oxide does to keep aluminum from rusting -- by forming a pure, solid oxide coating to protect the inner metal completely.

Does anyone more knowledgeable about metallurgy want to speculate about the implications for cutlery? In 3-4 years will all knives be made in carbon steel with a polyaniline coating?

[This message has been edited by johnniet (edited 08-21-2000).]

 

[Cliff Stamp]

You need the coating to be durable enough so that it can resist abrasive wear.

-Cliff

 

[johnniet]

It sounds like the standard practice is to add a thin epoxy coating over the polyaniline. Would that be enough? AND,
would that make it toxic at all?

 

[Roger Blake]

I would think that as a coating it would get scratched off leaving the surface vulnerable where it came off. I can't see that much use for knives unless its very tenacious and hard.

------------------
Roger Blake

 

[Cliff Stamp]

As Roger noted, unless a coating is very hard it will come off readily and thus its ability to protect against rust is totally removed. However this specific coating sounds like an excellent one to use for low stress cutting like soft vegetation or similar. You might want to drop the company an email, the knife industry could be a decent sized market if the coating had a usable application.

-Cliff