It's a metallic alloy that's supposed to be the teflon killer. The article is included below.
http://www.sltrib.com/06032002/business/business.htm
New Process Makes Teflon Stronger
BY VINCE HORIUCHI
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
University of Utah physics professor Orest Symko says he has found a way to make a better Teflon. Now he is waiting for the world to come slipping and sliding to his door.
More than 15 years ago, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Maryland established a new kind of alloy that is slippery and does not get wet, yet is five to 10 times stronger than steel, but they had not found a way to apply it to everyday objects. Every time they tried, it cracked and came off.
Over the past seven years, Symko and a team of students have developed a process that can take the material, called a quasi-crystal, and coat a thin film of it on ordinary objects such as pots and pans, scalpels -- even clothes irons.
The film is so durable as a nonstick surface on cooking pots that metal forks or spoons could never scratch it or wear it out.
"It probably will wear out your fork," Symko said.
The professor's process was patented last September and the University of Utah is trying to license it to companies.
"For industry, it has lots of applications," said Ehab Abdel-Rahman, a post-doctorate fellow at the U. of U. who is further developing the process. "They could apply it today to anything they wanted coated with it."
It could be used on razor blades, car pistons, computer hard disks or to make frictionless gears for micro-electromechanical systems or nano-scale machines with tiny motors.
In 1984, the Maryland researchers discovered quasi-crystals by accident. A material with five-sided symmetry, it stunned scientists because it was a new class of material they never thought could exist. Though it is an alloy, it is called a crystal because, like a crystal, its makeup is ordered.
"When you tile a floor, you can tile it with tiles with four sides, two sides, six sides and three sides. If you try to tile a floor with five sides, you will have gaps," Symko said. "The same thing applies with solids. You can have twofold, threefold, fourfold and sixfold symmetry but not five."
Yet scientists learned that with the right combination of aluminum, copper and iron, they can produce an alloy with a fivefold symmetry.
Not only is it stronger than steel and slick, it also can withstand higher temperatures than Teflon, possibly as high as 800 degrees.
The downside is it is brittle when normally applied to objects. That is where Symko's process comes in.
They use a "sputtering" machine normally used to coat metals on objects, like to cover aluminum on hubcaps. But this time, the process uses a special heat treament and mixes an exact amount of each of the three metals as it coats the object. The layer can be just nanometers thick.
"You're depositing this material atom by atom," Symko said. "It's not a fast process, but it works."
Though members of his team discovered this process in the mid-1990s, it took them this long to get their patent approved because it was a large patent with many claims and a competing French team was developing a similar process with quasi-crystals that involved spraying it on objects.
"They take the ingredients and melt it with a torch, then project it on the [object]. As it hits, it cools," Symko said. "It's not a refined process, but quite well known. They claimed they were making coatings, but we claimed we were making higher quality coatings."
Abdel-Rahman said while the procedure is more expensive, companies could use the process in mass production to bring costs down, benefitting everyone from car manufacturers to cooks.
"We've joked that we could lose money on it," he said. "If you buy a [pan coated with it], you don't have to buy it again."
vince@sltrib.com
http://www.sltrib.com/06032002/business/business.htm
New Process Makes Teflon Stronger
BY VINCE HORIUCHI
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
University of Utah physics professor Orest Symko says he has found a way to make a better Teflon. Now he is waiting for the world to come slipping and sliding to his door.
More than 15 years ago, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Maryland established a new kind of alloy that is slippery and does not get wet, yet is five to 10 times stronger than steel, but they had not found a way to apply it to everyday objects. Every time they tried, it cracked and came off.
Over the past seven years, Symko and a team of students have developed a process that can take the material, called a quasi-crystal, and coat a thin film of it on ordinary objects such as pots and pans, scalpels -- even clothes irons.
The film is so durable as a nonstick surface on cooking pots that metal forks or spoons could never scratch it or wear it out.
"It probably will wear out your fork," Symko said.
The professor's process was patented last September and the University of Utah is trying to license it to companies.
"For industry, it has lots of applications," said Ehab Abdel-Rahman, a post-doctorate fellow at the U. of U. who is further developing the process. "They could apply it today to anything they wanted coated with it."
It could be used on razor blades, car pistons, computer hard disks or to make frictionless gears for micro-electromechanical systems or nano-scale machines with tiny motors.
In 1984, the Maryland researchers discovered quasi-crystals by accident. A material with five-sided symmetry, it stunned scientists because it was a new class of material they never thought could exist. Though it is an alloy, it is called a crystal because, like a crystal, its makeup is ordered.
"When you tile a floor, you can tile it with tiles with four sides, two sides, six sides and three sides. If you try to tile a floor with five sides, you will have gaps," Symko said. "The same thing applies with solids. You can have twofold, threefold, fourfold and sixfold symmetry but not five."
Yet scientists learned that with the right combination of aluminum, copper and iron, they can produce an alloy with a fivefold symmetry.
Not only is it stronger than steel and slick, it also can withstand higher temperatures than Teflon, possibly as high as 800 degrees.
The downside is it is brittle when normally applied to objects. That is where Symko's process comes in.
They use a "sputtering" machine normally used to coat metals on objects, like to cover aluminum on hubcaps. But this time, the process uses a special heat treament and mixes an exact amount of each of the three metals as it coats the object. The layer can be just nanometers thick.
"You're depositing this material atom by atom," Symko said. "It's not a fast process, but it works."
Though members of his team discovered this process in the mid-1990s, it took them this long to get their patent approved because it was a large patent with many claims and a competing French team was developing a similar process with quasi-crystals that involved spraying it on objects.
"They take the ingredients and melt it with a torch, then project it on the [object]. As it hits, it cools," Symko said. "It's not a refined process, but quite well known. They claimed they were making coatings, but we claimed we were making higher quality coatings."
Abdel-Rahman said while the procedure is more expensive, companies could use the process in mass production to bring costs down, benefitting everyone from car manufacturers to cooks.
"We've joked that we could lose money on it," he said. "If you buy a [pan coated with it], you don't have to buy it again."
vince@sltrib.com
