Nanotechnology firm develops cheaper hard alloy

A Providence-based steel alloy manufacturer has developed a new industrial weld overlay and hardfacing alloy that cuts costs by avoiding three materials that have become very expensive in recent years: tungsten, nickel and molybdenum.
The NanoSteel Co. doesn’t disclose annual profit and sales, but President and CEO Dave Paratore said he expects the new Super Hard Steel 9700 to boost sales, which have already been growing rapidly since NanoSteel was formed in 2002.
“We’re doing pretty good,” he said. “Sales have doubled year after year, and we’re hoping they’ll double again this year.”
With a hardness of 69 on the Rockwell C-scale, SHS 9700 coats for abrasion resistance on the wear surface of mining and construction equipment, such as the bed of a dump truck that carries sand or the plow of a bulldozer. The three elements the new alloy avoids are “highly variable in their pricing” and currently “very expensive,” Paratore said, but this lower-cost option will still be able to compete with similar, higher-priced products.
“If you look around, a lot the competing products are in the low 60s, and some are in the high 50s,” said Paratore. “What we were trying to do was match their hardness without these expensive elements.”
Nanotechnology is the process of bettering the construction of materials on a particle level, and NanoSteel is working on alloy structures at less than 100 nanometers, or about one-thousandth the width of a human hair.
For NanoSteel, the new alloy is an extension of previous work. Before the creation of the SHS 9700 alloy, the company focused resources on designing thermal sprays to coat less than a quarter-inch of alloy onto abrasion surfaces. The SHS 9700 is designed to cover more thickly.
“All of our materials have that refined crystalline microstructure, that’s what makes it NanoSteel. But this is the first one that was this hard without the use of those three elements,” said Greg Nixon, marketing and directing manager.
The company’s SHS 9192, a higher-end version of the new alloy made with tungsten, nickel and molybdenum, has a hardness of between 70 and 71 Rc and has been on the market for about a year. But that’s marketed at between $25 and $35 a pound, while the new alloy is between $8 and $10 a pound.
“We understand that [SHS 9192] has its niche, but this will be better for the market,” said Paratore.
The company’s next project will be developing sheet metal – SHS 9700 is being sold in either wire or powder form – using similar processes, Paratore said.
NanoSteel’s 15 employees are split about evenly between the Providence headquarters, at 67 Cedar St., and an Idaho Falls, Idaho, research center. In its first five years, the company has produced more than 25 patents and licenses and won awards, including a 2007 Research & Design 100 Award for Hardmetal Alternative Technology Development. •