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Science

Diamond-coated Steel 100

Posted by michael from the girl's-best-friend dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A Dutch chemist has successfully coated steel with a layer of diamond, opening the possibility for insanely strong tools that almost never wear out -- not to mention armor tough as, well, diamond-coated nails. From Science Blog."
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Diamond-coated Steel More

Diamond-coated Steel

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  • Tools? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by PD ( 9577 ) * <slashdotlinux@pdrap.org> on Friday May 16, 2003 @06:42PM (#5976566) Homepage Journal
    How about engine parts? They might make an engine that would run for a half million miles with normal oil changes.

    • Re:Tools? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @06:51PM (#5976647) Homepage Journal
      "How about engine parts? They might make an engine that would run for a half million miles with normal oil changes."

      Yeah, I'm sure the car industry will hop all over the ability to provide cars that last longer. ;)

      • Re:Tools? (Score:2, Funny)

        by elphkotm ( 574063 )
        Seems to have worked for Honda...

      • Re:Tools? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Sherloqq ( 577391 )
        What would the point be, though? Yeah, sure, so you buy a car ever 25 years, instead of every 5-10 -- how much more expensive would a diamond-coated-engine-equipped car be compared to a regular one? I'm sure that this innovation would cost us, consumers, a pretty penny.

        Plus, what good is a diamond-coated engine if the paint fades after 15 years or the body rusts through? Not to mention what happens when you get bored with the car you have -- those of us, who get cars for the purpose of driving them to the
        • Plus, what good is a diamond-coated engine if the paint fades after 15 years or the body rusts through?

          You could diamond coat the body work.

          • You could diamond coat the body work.

            Oy... and pay the equivalent of the cost a small Hyundai to the insurance company every year?

            Plus, like I said earlier, I want variety. I want change. I don't want to be driving the same thing for decades. I don't want to sell the car early either -- you lose too much in depreciation that way. I buy a car that will last me 5-10 years and I drive it till it can't be driven no more. But I'm not gonna sit around 15 years :)
            • lose too much in depreciation

              Seems that the car would be worth more when you sell it if it will last longer, so this would be a good thing for people that like to trade often.
              • car would be worth more when you sell it if it will last longer

                Yes, but if on average all new cars lose 50% of their value in their first 3 years, then I'd rather lose 50% of $15-20k than 50% of $40-50k.

                I picked "3 years" and "50%" arbitrarily for example purposes. I don't know what the real numbers are, but I hope you understand my point regardless of the figures.

                This is why I'll probably never buy a new car, or a new home (the latter always involves major work like lawns, fences and driveways that one
                • If cars loose a large percentage of their value before significant wear occurs, its probably mostly because the people who buy new cars place a large value on the car being 'new' rather than 'new to them'. Some people just gotta be first.

                  I agree re the value of buying new cars. I bought one once, big mistake. I only buy late-model used now. Actually at the moment two of my cars are over 30 years old. Gotta replace a part once in a while, but at least I can do it without six special wrenches, diagnosti
    • Platinum Spark Plugs, Diamond coated steel, is this a machine or a wedding ring?

    • Re:Tools? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Smidge204 ( 605297 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @06:55PM (#5976680) Journal
      They do... typically deisel engines can last up to and over a million miles with typical (and scheduled) maintainance. Take care of your car's engine and you might get more than a lifetime's worth of use out of it, too.

      I'm more interested in the bonding issue. If heat can effect the bonding (because steel and diamond have very different thermal expansion coefficients), then how useful would this really be for, say, cutting tools?

      Also, I can't see armor plating as being all that impressive. diamond coated steel might have excellent wear characteristics, but since the layer is just atoms thick (I'm assuming, article didn't say... maye you could build it up with repeated coatings?) it wouldn't offer much to resist bending or puncture... thus not being a big improvement for armor. Diamond is also brittle [bris.ac.uk], meaning it'll be easy to crack if you bend or chip it.

      Heat transfer properties, however, are very interesting. If they can build up layers, you could start with a thin wire forms and make diamond heat sinks... and diamond is a very good heat conductor. (based on the process they describe to make it, doesn't sound too expensive either... heating up hydrogen and methane gas? Pfft!)
      =Smidge=

      • Re:Tools? (Score:3, Informative)

        by Tony Tastey ( 247 )

        I'm more interested in the bonding issue. If heat can effect the bonding (because steel and diamond have very different thermal expansion coefficients), then how useful would this really be for, say, cutting tools?

        well, they did mention that the initial use of chromium nitride was discarded specifically for that problem. they go on to mention that a surface treatment of boron causes the expansion coefficient to be much more similar to that of diamond, and that the effect fades as you get deeper down in


        • The main problem with diamond-tipped tools is that diamond is soluble in iron at high temperatures -- and cutting tools generally get very hot at least in industrial applications.

          That means that (a) you can't use a diamond-tipped tool to cut iron or steel, since the diamond tip will just dissolve away, and (b) for the same reason, you don't want to use a diamond coating on steel.

          Of course this isn't a problem at low Ts. In fact I use diamond-coated razor blades to shave.
      • To get the highest heat conductivity that you can from diamond films, you need to use isotopically purified carbon-12. Taking out that 1% of carbon-13 improves the conductivity by about 40%. Considering that normal diamond film has four times the thermal conductivity of copper, that's a lot!

        Companies already exist to diamond coat objects up to 12" across and 1.5mm deep, so it can be more than "atoms thick" if you'd like. Here's a couple places that do it:
        Diamonex [diamonex.com].
        P1 [p1diamond.com].
      • Re: because steel and diamond have very different thermal expansion coefficients, then how useful would this really be for, say, cutting tools?

        I think I can shed some light on this. Existing turning tools now use carbide inserts braised onto a tool steel holder. When the tool is initially machined into it's shape, the stress relief movement of the carbide happens at a differant speed than the same stress relief in the tool holder. This build up of force can be enough to crack the carbide, as it is bei

    • Re:Tools? (Score:3, Funny)

      by photon317 ( 208409 )

      Imagine a beowulf cluster of diamond-coated fractal blades! :)

    • Something more useful (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      How about diamond coated razor blades?

      I'd happily pay for a lifetime of shaving from one blade. Just make sure those lubricant strips are refillable - we don't want a lifetime a razor-burn now do we?

    • Re:Tools? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by xtal ( 49134 )
      A well cared for car (engine and all) should last half a million miles. You should be able to get 250,000 miles or so on a properly maintained engine. There are a lot of Hondas (my experience is limited to Honda) with 500,000+ km on them in my area.

      What a lot of people don't realize about engines is that it is possible to rebuild and swap in new ones for a reasonable fee. You need to replace your piston rings, you usually need new pistons and a bore job done on the cylinder. The connecting rods should be f
    • Quasicrystals exhibit unusual crystalline symetry not thought possible before their discovery. More to the point, quasicrystalline coatings are cheap, hard, durable, and non-stick.

      http://mcs.open.ac.uk/ugg2/quasi_intro.html-ssi

      http://www.inductionsystems.com/Merchant2/mercha nt .mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=I&Category_Code=SCY B2

  • ha! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Tumbleweed ( 3706 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @06:43PM (#5976579)
    Transparent Aluminum is for wusses! :)

  • and I'd like to use this for (Score:3, Funny)

    by 7-Vodka ( 195504 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @06:44PM (#5976584) Journal
    Being the first to play a prank on someone with the indestructable pepsi can.

  • armor? (Score:4, Funny)

    by isj ( 453011 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @06:59PM (#5976710) Homepage
    ... not to mention armor tough as, well, diamond-coated nails

    And 2 days after that the first diamond-tipped projectiles will be available.

    • Re:armor? (Score:4, Informative)

      by maxume ( 22995 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @08:10PM (#5977127)
      If you are in the business of 'stopping' something, you wouldn't really want diamond coated projectiles. When you fire a projectile at something, you want the energy of the projectile transferred to the object you are firing at. This means that you generally want your projectile to expand at impact. This also has the side effect of causing greater damage to the target, which is also sometimes an objective. A diamond coated projectile is going to tend to just pass on through, which is counter to both of the objectives.

      I guess there might be some applications as far as armor piercing goes, but that is generally done by increasing caliber, which pretty much just adds energy to the projectile, hence its increased stopping power.

      • Re:armor? (Score:4, Informative)

        by GigsVT ( 208848 ) * on Friday May 16, 2003 @10:04PM (#5977592) Journal
        For armor piercing, lately the goal has been to keep the caliber down, and increase mass and/or hardness with depleted uranium or tungsten, which are very dense and harder than lead.

        In the civilian area, teflon tipped bullets (so-called cop-killer) made a big splash a while back, but it was mostly anti-gun hype, they were designed for law enforcement use, and never available to the public. They were designed to penetrate things like car doors, not kevlar.

        The teflon was actually mostly to prevent excess wear on the barrel of the gun, since the bullet was made almost entirely from brass. No cop has ever been killed by the bullets so named (As far as anyone can tell). I'd imagine a diamond coated bullet would tear up a barrel in short order, and would be totally impractical.

        An interesting factoid regarding expansion: hollow and soft tipped bullets are mostly banned in engagements of war by the Hague Peace Conferences, which the US didn't technically sign on to, but they follow this part anyway. The Geneva convention also bans "weapons that cause superfluous injury". I guess the point of war is to maim, not to kill.
        • were designed for law enforcement use, and never available to the public.

          But what is not available to a registered dealer? Cost of license: ~$30

          • My father had a federal firearms license, trust me, it's not something where you just mail in money and a little form and you are done. Tons of paperwork, reporting requirements, requirements about gunsafes, audits (they do check to make sure you are in compliance!)...etc, etc.

            Getting a FFL to do illegal things would be the height of stupidity, since they are then watching you extra closely.

            It's very similar to the requirements of getting a Class B display fireworks license, in other words, a huge pain i
            • I based my post on a 60 Minutes story I watched several years back. IIRC they said that the licenses referred to were regulated by the states. Their investigation showed that it was possible for gang members and even convicted felons to obtain. Is a federal firearms license something different which would be required to sell teflon bullets and machine guns?

              • Re:armor? (Score:2, Informative)

                by Wyatt Earp ( 1029 )
                Federal Machine Gun licenses are for required for the seller, maker and the buyer. In addition many states also have registration for machine guns.

                Machine Guns are under TITLE II : Machine Guns, Destructive Devices, and Certain other Firearms of the National Firearms Act - Title 26, U.S. Code, Section 5801-5872

                "On 1st engaging in business and thereafter on or before July 1 of each year, every importer, manufacturer, and dealer in firearms shall pay a special (occupational) tax for each place of busines
              • I based my post on a 60 Minutes story

                Ah, well there's your problem. :)

                Seriously though, you can't do much with a FFL that you can't do without it. I guess one of the main things is that you can mail order firearms.
                • I guess one of the main things is that you can mail order firearms

                  Most gunshops and many shooting ranges are happy to receive your mail order firearms for you, for a small fee (unless you are a good customer, then its free).
        • Then you could use non-teflon-coated brass bullets and not tear up your barrel. Or maybe just load a buck fifty worth of silver dimes into your shotgun and go warewolf hunting..
        • I guess the point of war is to maim, not to kill.

          True, without question. I don't know whether you mean it as an offhand remark, but what you say is true as a matter of doctrine (official or otherwise) for many fighting forces. A dead enemy soldier is a one less soldier shooting at you. A maimed soldier is two fewer soldiers shooting at you--because somebody has to carry the wounded guy. Additionally, there are major costs in terms of manpower and materiel--not to mention morale--associated with treat

        • I guess the point of war is to maim, not to kill.

          Actually, it is. If you kill a soldier, you've removed one soldier.

          If you severely wound a soldier, then you've taken him out, and his buddies that drag him off the front lines, and the guy who has to drive him to an aid station, then there's the medical staff that have to work on him, all the people you need to maintain the hospital, and so on.

          You can remove a lot more people from the battlefield by wounding. However, it's usually not worth the risk of
      • You miss the point. It's the classic arms vs armor escalation. The parent post isn't advocating using diamond bullets because it's new and interesting, but using diamond bullets because lesser ones won't penetrate the other guy's new diamond armor. Everything you said is valid and correct for normal bullets, but might be made irrelevant by better armor.

        Or the parent poster could just have been making a joke, not realizing how true it was :)

      • Re:armor? (Score:3, Informative)

        by photon317 ( 208409 )

        You're perpetuating the "stopping-power" myth perpetuated by companies with a vested interest in larger slower calibers. You want to "stop" the person you're shooting at, no doubt, but that has little to do with the ft/lbs of energy transferred to the target - the greater determinant is the extent of the damage the wound does to the body, and how quickly and severly this causes shock, rendering the target useless and usually dying. The "side effect of causing greater damage" is not "also sometimes an obje
        • What would be really effective at the handgun level would be to have a sabot round that has a smaller caliber penetrator made out of a denser metal.
          • What would be really effective at the handgun level would be to have a sabot round that has a smaller caliber penetrator made out of a denser metal.

            Right, I think the term you're looking for is sabot discarding - the sabot is the part of the round that changes the effective cal of the munition.

            In tanks - IIRC - they are APFSSD rounds - that's Armor Piericing Fin Stabalized Sabot Discarding, but the popular name for them is SABOT (like you said). Strictly a Kinetic Energy (KE) round. The other "authoriz

        • You're perpetuating the "stopping-power" myth perpetuated by companies with a vested interest in larger slower calibers.

          What companies would those be?

          I agree the original poster was confused, but you're reply is pretty confusing too.

          The large-caliber versus small-caliber debate has been around for decades, and both have good points. Small caliber high velocity rounds have better range, better ballistics (less drop at range) and generally higher energy (ft/lbs delivered) so at first glance it looks li

  • Just curious if this could also mean stronger steel. Okay, I've been watching Knight Rider, sue me.

  • Fuel cell application? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by spumoni_fettuccini ( 668603 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @07:17PM (#5976819) Journal
    I know one of the issues was storage. Store it cold/under extreme pressure [while allowing more hydrogen] a very thick walled tank is needed which adds serious weight. If it was stored in a thinner walled tank the amount of hydrogen capacity was cut down to a point of not really being feasible as a fuel alternative. Seems like this might help.
    • I saw a thing on 20/20 with a clever solution to this problem. A GM prototype car uses the chassis as the fuel cell: the chassis looks like a big skateboard (with a wheel near each corner), the skateboard is strong and the hydrogen is stored inside it. Then you can bolt seats on top of it, put a bodyshell over the top, etc.
    • I'll start off by saying that I'm no expert.

      That being said, diamond is extremely hard. That doesn't neccasary make it tough. Using steel as an analogy, as it tend s to get harder, it tends to get increasingly brittle. When you are dealing with containing something that is cold and under pressure, you don't want to deal with brittle. Brittle will make your tank crack, which is pretty much antithetical to the whole 'containing' thing. That's why stuff that is nice and resilent, like carbon fiber and whatnot
    • There are two different methods of storing H2. One method is to store it as a highly pressurized gas, which doesn't need to kept at cold temperatures but does need a strong container. The other method involves cooling it until it condenses... at -460 deg. F. As a liquid it doesn't need to be stored at pressure but needs extremely good insulation. The drawback of the first method is that the hydrogen gas takes up an enormous volume, and combined with the weight of the container becomes impractical for us

    • Re:Fuel cell application? (Score:4, Informative)

      by adolf ( 21054 ) <flodadolf@gmail.com> on Friday May 16, 2003 @10:55PM (#5977764) Journal
      One issue:

      Diamonds aren't particularly strong; the only meaningful industrial aspect of them is that they're very, very hard.

      Hardness != strength.

      A diamond-coated fuel cell, I might surmise, would perform about as well at the application as the same fuel cell would without diamonds.

      • A diamond-coated fuel cell, I might surmise, would perform about as well at the application as the same fuel cell would without diamonds.

        It might, however, encourage adoption of alternative fuels by encouraging Hollywood stars to buy it.

  • Images (Score:5, Informative)

    by Pall Agamemnides ( 673074 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @07:25PM (#5976873)
    This page [www.nwo.nl] has highly-magnified images of what this process does to steel. Here are direct links to the images:

    Not wanted: graphite on tool steel [www.nwo.nl]
    Wanted : a good-adhering diamond layer on tool steel with an intermediate layer of chromium nitride [www.nwo.nl]

  • Heh.. Armor indeed! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Randolpho ( 628485 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @09:40PM (#5977486) Homepage Journal
    Anyone else have late-teen AD&D flashbacks? You know... doing everything you could to finagle your DM into letting you have that diamond armor that lets you cast spells but with an AC of like -10?

    What, just me? Come on, there must be at least *one* other munchkin on slashdot! Admit it... you twinked out when you were a kid! We all did. It's ok, you're among friends! We won't judge you.

  • Knight Rider did this already.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by malakai ( 136531 ) * on Friday May 16, 2003 @09:44PM (#5977501) Journal
    Kit had a diamond coating over his entire (car) body. I think they called it OmniCoating or something 80's high-tech sounding like that.

    In one episode, i think they discovered an achillies heal where part of Kit was not properly protected... we almost lost him on that one.

    Anyhow, this is soooo 80s...

    Didn't Neil Stephenson teach us not to coat with diamonds, but build with them? Molecule ([begin debate now on whether diamond is a moleclue or not]) by molecule. I want 4inch think diamond windows. I don't care if their brittle, the matricies will be built in a fault redundant manner...

    -Malakai
    • No man...they sprayed kit down with some "degreasser" that removed the coating and then they beat him with jackhammer enhanced tractors. The next episode is where we got Kit in the convertable & the hyper-super-turbo charger.
    • Fault redundant? Correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn't adding fault redundancy increase the likelyhood that any flaw or stress will result in the entire structure falling appart?

      I would suspect that fault tollerance and redundant support structures would be prefered to fault redundancy.

      -Rusty

  • Aerospace: shuttle tiles, NASP (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    IIRC, the "national aerospace plane" was being held up mainly because of insufficiently heat-tolerant materials. They could make the nose of the plane of any ordinary material and it would just melt. It would be interesting if this is the breakthrough that makes it possible.

    If so, Looks like the shuttle tiles could use a coating of it as well.

    • Far as I remember, diamond melts at around 900 degrees c. Which really isn't that high.

      • Re:Aerospace: shuttle tiles, NASP (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        You remember as far as I could comfortably spit a rat. As for diamond. Diamond has the highest melting point (3820 degrees Kelvin)! I assume they are talking highest melting point of all minerals. I got the quote from http://mineral.galleries.com/minerals/elements/dia mond/diamond.htm

        • Re:Aerospace: shuttle tiles, NASP (Score:1, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          And just so you know, 3820 degress Kelvin is about 3547 degrees Celsius or 6416 degrees Fahrenheit or 2837 degrees Reaumur for any frenchmen in the crowd or even 6876 degrees rankine for anybody who uses that.
          • Yes, it may melt at these exhorbitantly high temperatures, but does it burn?

            Diamond is carbon. So is charcoal.

            I betcha it takes a helluva temperature to melt charcoal briquettes too. But they really don't get all that hot in the barbeque.


            • No, diamond is very difficult to burn (that's why diamond-tiupped drills don't burst into flame). And in fact, so is pure graphite. One reason for this is that diamond (& pure graphite) is non porous, so any burning can only take place on the surface. (Charcoal briquettes are extremely porous by comparison.)

              Another reason is that the carbons in diamond are so tightly bound, you don't get any "diamond dust" lying around that could kick-start the burning. Again, with charcoal, there's tiny bits of carbon
              • Thanks for the reply...

                I had been under the impression that a barbeque grill loaded with diamonds would charbroil a steak just as well as one loaded with briquettes, albeit no flavor due to the purity of the carbon. And burn a bit longer due to the density. I did not think briquettes would be burning on the inside as the oxidation, taking place on the surface, would consume all available oxygen.

                Thanks for the input on this.

  • chips (Score:1)

    by xluap ( 652530 )
    How about building chips in thin cheap layers of diamond? Diamond is a semiconductor.

  • Brittle (Score:2, Informative)

    by DrBobcf ( 632403 )
    Diamond is a lot like ceramics, very herd but also very brittle. Hit it the wrong way and you have diamond dust. I loved the RPG diamond armor - one the other guy! One swing and my opponent is naked. It would make a terrific corrosion prevention coating, if the piece doesn't flex outside of the specs.

  • Cool (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mindstrm ( 20013 ) on Saturday May 17, 2003 @03:38PM (#5981237)
    Anyone else thinking what I'm thinking?

    Finally, a nice, heavy frying pan that won't scratch.

    • Hmm. I didn't think that diamond was a good enough conductor to cook with. I think I'd rather have a nice set of diamond knives, myself.
      • I bet they'd have the same limitations that ceramic knives do.

        http://www.eceramic.com/faqs.htm

        Q. Will a ceramic knife break or shatter if I drop it?
        A. No (with the possible exception of the tip). Zirconium oxide is a very strong material. Like a forged steel knife, however, you can break the tip if the knife lands on the tip. Fortunately, we can repair most damaged tips under the five year warranty.

        Q. How can I damage a ceramic knife?
        A. Two ways. First, you can chip the edge if you cut into bones or us
        • Oh, you're absolutely right, but being harder than ceramics, they'd probably hold up a little better under daily use.
      • I didn't think that diamond was a good enough conductor to cook with.

        Diamond is the best thermal conductor we know of.

        Specially purified artificial diamonds have the highest thermal conductivity (20-25 W/cmK, five times more than copper) of any known solid at room temperature. [wikipedia.org]

        Purified artificial diamonds have the record, but natural diamonds are also far more conductive than copper.

        -

      • Diamond is a very good conductor of heat. To wit: [wikipedia.org]

        In general thermal conductance tracks electrical conductance, metals being good thermal conductors. There are exceptions, the most outstanding is that of diamond which has a high thermal conductance, between 1000 and 2600 Wm-1K-1, while the electrical conductance is low. Thermal conductance of other common materials: Silver 430 Copper 390 Gold 320 Platinum 70 Quartz 8 Glass 1 Since diamond has such a high thermal conductance, natural blue diamond much high

        • I stand corrected (and very well done, since my conductance statement was based on its electrical properties)
  • Wonder how long it will take before the first casemods come? And will they be able to make it transparent?
  • Imagine man made diamond doped with oxygen in low power,
    low temp computer chips, allowing a scalar jump in speed .

    Imagine Superconducting powerlines, generators, motors, etc .

    Imagine superconducting power plants , using room temperature
    super conductors .

    Imagine a find that could literally change the world .

    http://physicsweb.org/article/news/7/4/5

    Peace !
    Ex-MislTech
  • Diamond coated surfaces may display low friction coefficients due to the lack of shearing on the molecular scale at the interface of such objects.
  • Many of the nastier japanese swords that I've seen had diamond coats or something to make them sharper.

  • Diamond is one of the most remarkable materials known to exist.

    Yes we all know it's the hardest material in existence. But it's also the stiffest, the least compressible and the best conductor of heat and sound, and one of the best electrical resistors. And it's not brittle either -- it has a tensile strength equivalent to steel.

    In fact one of the potentially biggest uses of diamond coatings is nothing to do with its strength. The combination of electrical resistances and heat conductivity makes diam

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