Photocentric awarded Innovate funded grant to lead pioneering Silicon Carbide project
For the UK to be carbon neutral by 2050, we need bold, game-changing innovations to be applied to our most energy consuming industries. This project will do just that by enabling the wider use of ceramics and thus enabling their energy saving properties to be used in the industries that use most of it.
This project will enable the creation of industrial scale production, high quality Silicon Carbide parts, one of the most challenging materials to manufacture at a price that enables their widespread adoption within the Foundation Industries. Silicon Carbide is extremely hard, heat resistant (melts at 2730°C), abrasion and chemical resistant, and thermally conductive. These exceptional properties make Silicon Carbide ideal for a wide variety of applications. However, because it is also very hard it’s extremely difficult to manufacture.
This project will combine British inventions to create dense Silicon Carbide parts by an innovative additive manufacturing method using visible light selectively passing through LCD screen-based printers to make parts which will be subsequently infiltrated with silicon to bond with residual carbon to densify the parts to become usable dense Silicon Carbide parts.
Furthermore, it will place the UK at the forefront of using novel materials that provide energy saving benefits, creating more jobs and providing technological benefits over imported products.
The project is led by Photocentric, with MTC as a technical partner, Kanthal as an industrial user and the Cast Metal Federation and Glass Futures as organisations who will enable its transfer through their members.
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