www.hvm-uk.com 2014 Talk at HVM Graphene+ Oxford

1. HVM Graphene + Conference, Oxford, UK
www.hvm-uk.com
15.5.2014
Gavin Farmer, Carbodeon
Carbodeon NanoDiamond Materials:
“Hard as Hell, but Cooler”
@carbodeon Carbodeon Ltd. Oy.

2. Material selection: Compromise…..
Won’t meet
next gen.
product specs
Not strong
enough
Too
brittle
Wrong
Thermal
properties
Regulatory
Issues
Doesn’t fit
manufacturing
process
Some
other
problem
Too
expensive
Material selection: Compromise…..

3. Material design: Combine…..
……. and Optimise
Extreme
material
Compromise
material
Optimised
properties,
process, cost.
Too expensiveBase Material
Something
Extreme!
Selected ratio
Property combination
Structural effects

4. Carbodeon NanoDiamond –
Extreme Material.
Strength
Hardness
Surface
Friction
Chemically
Inert
Optical
Properties
Dielectric
Thermal
Conductivity
With some unusual combinations

5. Where, What, & How
Polymer Coatings
Thermal Polymers Nicanite® Carbon Nitride
Plating and Anodising

6. Plating and Anodising
 Nanodiamond suspension or dispersion added to solutions
 Finer grain structure + embedded hard particles
1. Industrial machine parts with
hard chrome: durability
improved from 3.5 to 5.5 years
2. Gold plated electrical
connectors: wear performance
improved by 100%
3. Electroless nickel:
Abrasion resistance tripled

7. Polymer Coatings
 NanoDiamond powder, suspension, or dispersion
 Hard particles bonded to parent material.
 Polymer reinforced/ restructured at molecular scale
1. PTFE and FEP coatings –
aqueous and solvent.
Wear improvement up to 50%
Friction reduction up to 66%
Surface finish improved 85%
2. Consumer product: unnamed coating formulations on unnamed
products: Wear performance improved by >3X

8. Thermal Management
 Nanodiamond powders added to existing polymers & composites
 Thermal conductivity without compromise to other properties
Electronics & LED – TIM & Heat
sinks: Thermal, dielectric and
structural properties
Thermoplastic Development:
Thermal conductivity increased
>25% with 0.1wt% NanoDiamond
Low Carbon Vehicles:
Additional Structural, frictional,
lightweighting &Tg improvements

9. Where, What, & How
 Detonation Produced Nanodiamond – 4-6 nm diamond particles
 Proven industrial process: tonnes/ yr scale
 With surface
functional groups
 Graphitic facets Sp3 Diamond
Core

10. uDiamond® Portfolio - Vivace Suspension
and Andante Dispersion
 uDiamond Vivace
• A zeta-positive, 5 wt.% aqueous ND
suspension
• Agglomerated, zeta potential up to + 37 mV
• Standard grade for plating within acidic
region
 uDiamond Andante
• A zeta-positive, 5 wt.% aqueous ND
dispersion
• Dispersion stable within pH range of 3 to 6
• Zeta potential up to + 52 mV
• Solvents including Di-Ethylene Glycol
Dispersion
stable within pH
3 to 6
Singe Digit ND
Dispersion
D90 = 4.6 nm
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
1 6 11
Zetapotential(mV)
pH
Andante
ZP (mV)
-60
-40
-20
0
20
40
1 6 11
ZetaPotential(mV)
pH
Vivace
ZP (mV)

11. Vivace, Andante, Andante (Diluted)

12. uDiamond® Portfolio - Vox D
 A new, patented highly zeta
negative nanodiamond dispersion
• Fully carboxylated surface
• Zeta potentials up to -71 mV
• Dispersion stable in pH 5 to 12
 Solvents
• Aqueous, 5 wt.%
• NMP, 2 wt %
• NEP, 1 wt%
• GBL, other solvents on the way
 Applications
• Paints, resins, fluoropolymer
COOH
-80.0
-70.0
-60.0
-50.0
-40.0
-30.0
-20.0
-10.0
0.0
10.0
20.0
1.0 3.0 5.0 7.0 9.0 11.0 13.0
zp(mV)
pH
Robust stability
within pH 5 to 12
Singe Digit ND
Dispersion
D90 = 6.61 nm
Particle size distribution
Dispersion stability in pH range 2 to 13

13. uDiamond® Portfolio
 Options for surface chemistry and morphology
 Powders - agglomerated clusters of NanoDiamonds in >100nm
scale. Used where no compatible solvent available, e.g. certain
thermal polymers.
 Suspensions – smaller agglomerates in liquid, easier to incorporate.
 Dispersions – single digit 4-6 nm particles in stable dispersion
Very easy dispersion – direct mixing
Increased surface area
Low concentrations 0.05-1.0wt%, <1g/litre (in cases)
Paints, resins with no visual effects
Choice of Solvents
Also for electroplating @ pH>3

14. Where, What, & How
Property
Requirements,
Test Methods,
Economics
Material and
Process
Understanding
NanoDiamond
Material Selection
Dispersion
Methods &
Process
Optimisation
Communication

15. Where, What, & How
Unfortunately, it isn’t as simple as this!

16. Example Application - Electroplating
 NanoDiamonds result in a denser, less cracked/ porpous stucture
leading to improved corrosion resistance.
 Agglomerated NanoDiamond – 100nm plus scale
Cracks in conventional coating. NanoDiamond reinforced coating with
reduced cracking.
50µm

17. uDiamond® Vivace With CrVI
Conventional Hard
Chrome
High Performance
Hard Chrome
Typical uDiamond®
Vivace Hard
Chrome
Optimised
uDiamond® Vivace
Hard Chrome
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
1800
Microhardness (HV)
Conventional Hard
Chrome
High Performance
Hard Chrome
Typical uDiamond®
Vivace Hard Chrome
Optimised
uDiamond® Vivace
Hard Chrome
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Wear Rate (weight loss%)
Conventional Hard
Chrome
High Performance
Hard Chrome
Typical
uDiamond®
Vivace Hard
Chrome
Optimised
uDiamond®
Vivace Hard
Chrome
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
Corrosion Rate (g/m2.yr)
 Key improvements:
• Microhardness: 20-50%
• Wear resistance: >100%
• Corrosion resistance: 50-100%
• Friction coefficient: -30%
 Hurdle:
• 10g/litre agglomerated NanoDiamond

18. uDiamond® Andante in Electroless Nickel
 Medium phosphorous
electroless nickel
 No agglomeration –
single digit dispersion
 Annealing at 350 °C
 Nanodiamond
surface
functionalization has
a big impact in
electroless processes
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02
Microhardness[HV]
ND concentration [g/l]
As-deposited
Annealed
Microhardness of electroless
nickel with and without ND’s.
Annealing at 350 °C.

19. Introducing Carbodeon’s Plating Lab
 Material analysis – wear testing
 Electroless & Electrolytic Nickel
 Trivalent Chromium

20. SEM-images of 0,05 g/l ND containing E/N samples
4µm 400nm

21. Electroless Nickel – Preliminary in-house test
results
 Medium phosphorous (P =
5-9%)
 No heat treatment
 Wear resistance measured
using Taber 5135, CS-10
rolls ,1 kg load
 TWI = average weight loss
[mg] / 1000 revolutions
 Small change in hardness,
large change in wear
resistance
 Diamond composition in the
plating is approx 0.2-0.4wt%
 Diamond cost is lower than
the Nickel cost
0 g/l 0,05 g/l 0,1 g/l
TWI 18.2 5.6 6.8
0.0
2.0
4.0
6.0
8.0
10.0
12.0
14.0
16.0
18.0
20.0
Average Taber Wear Indexes of
Electroless Nickel with various
ND-concentrations

22. Example Coating Application
NanoDiamond-Fluoropolymer Coatings
Over 500 samples made and tested
to date.
Suspension grade:
Improvements made, based on around
2wt% addition.
Dispersion grade:
Matching improvements made using
0.05-0.25wt%
Friction, Wear and Surface Finish
Improvements
Reference With ND’s
50µm 50µm
1.0mm 1.0mm

23. Wear Properties – PTFE (Aqueous)
 ND concentrations, in final coatings
• Agglomerating grade, 1 wt.%
• Single Digit grade, 0.1 wt.%
 Wear properties studied up to 2000-3500 cycles
 Up to 50% improvement in wear properties , up to 66% friction reduction
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000
Massreduction(mg)
Cycles
PTFE_REF - #1
PTFE_KT - #1
PTFE_Ktsingle - #1
REF. PTFE
1.0wt%
AGGLOM. ND
0.1wt%
SINGLE DIGIT
DISPERSION
Taber analyses

24. Friction Properties – PTFE (Aq) Example
 Friction tests with Allegro ND – not the latest single digit dispersion
 ND concentrations varied between 0.1 to 3.0 wt.%
 Significant improvements already with very low ND additions
 66% reduction received with 2 wt.% ND concentration
0.000
0.020
0.040
0.060
0.080
0.100
0.120
0.140
0.160
1R 0.1 0.5 1.0 2.0 3.0
Frictioncoefficient
ND concentration (wt.%)
Allegro
Friction coefficient averages

25. Friction - Wear Collection
Plating, coatings, nanocomposites
 Powertrain
components
(friction, wear)
 Chassis
components
(friction,
corrosion,
elastomer
properties)
 Interior & Exterior
(wear resistant
resins &
coatings, high
performance
composites)
 Automotive, Aerospace & Defence, Industrial, Electronics etc.

26. Carbodeon – Providing You a Unique
Advantage through New Materials
Application
Techniques
Material
Technology
Unique
Customer
Value
Cooperative
Projects
Contact
Us!
gavin.farmer@carbodeon.com / +44 7768 587105