Jan 12 2010
RUSNANO to Finance Production of Functional Nanostructured Coatings. The project will create a network of innovative production centers offering comprehensive solutions for applying a broad spectrum of multifunctional nanostructured coatings.
Participants in the project, in addition to RUSNANO, are Technological Systems for Protective Coatings, government corporation Rosatom, and management company United Engine-Building Corporation. The total project budget is four billion rubles. RUSNANO will invest 1.22 billion rubles and hold a 49 percent share in the equity of the project company.
The project’s mission is to introduce modern import-substituting and resource-saving technologies for applying functional coatings for a variety of industries.
Specialists from the project company will offer customers turnkey solutions for applying multi-functional nanostructured coatings—thermal barrier, wear-resistant, corrosion-resistant—to refurbish and lengthen the working life of equipment in the oil and gas, aviation, nuclear, machine-building, metallurgy, and construction industries and in other fields. The coatings protect structures like drilling platforms, bridges and metal construction from corrosion; they safeguard shut-off valves and pumping and compressor fixtures; they protect equipment for drilling, oil and gas extraction, and processing and refining from wear and tear. They imbue manufactured articles with special properties.
Production centers for application of the coatings will be situated in regional centers, such as, Tyumen, Surgut, St. Petersburg, Perm, Ufa, and Kursk, near businesses and plants that are potential customers for these services. Proximity will enable customers to lower costs for logistics when purchasing the coatings. The centers will be fully equipped to fill orders with solutions that are tailored to the specific buyer.
Project technologies involve a high-speed physical vapor deposition process and ion-plasma magnetron sputtering. They are among the technologies most in demand and most promising worldwide. New technologies for applying nanostructured coatings are replacing old, environmentally dangerous ones, in particular, galvanization processes. In combination, the two planned technologies make it possible to achieve new properties in coatings.
One example of benefits from the use of protective coatings is the resource enhancement gained in gas-turbine engines valves with different functional nanocoatings. They improve efficiency and engine power and resolve key problems in developing fifth-generation engines, opening the way to considerable improvement in the technical characteristics of Russian airplanes.
The project plans to make further refinements in existing technologies and to develop new types of nanostructured coatings and new materials for their application. The project is oriented toward the Russian market.
“This is one of the most important projects in RUSNANO’s portfolio. With the introduction of these technologies, highly competitive products with new properties will appear in many sectors of the Russian economy. We are talking not only about gas-turbine engines or drilling motors. There is bridge construction that will not have to be given anti-corrosive protection every year; there is a new generation of aquatic equipment and ships whose hulls and framework will be resistant to aggressive ocean and sea environments. There are thousands of different applications. In addition, nanocoating technologies are capable of lengthening the useful life and raising the effectiveness of existing equipment in many areas of industry,” noted RUSNANO Managing Director Alexander Kondrashov.