cleanMOULD · CleanMOULD: Advanced low friction and fretting-resistant diamond-like coating solution

Fretting wear is the limiting factor in the life of many plastic injection moulds. Each time that the mould is closed during itsmoulding cycle, the contacting surfaces “adjust” to each other and undergo microscopic vibrational movements that slowlydamage these surfaces, leading to severe tear and particle release. Ultimately, the mould needs to be scrapped afterrepeated regrinding, thus significantly affecting overall mould service life. Since longer productive lifecycles further dilute theheavy upfront investments in casting moulds in injection moulding production pipelines, reducing the impact of frettingcorrosion is a fundamental need transversal to all manufacturing industries relying in this type of productive process.Building on CemeCon Scandinavia extensive experience in solving tribological problems in injection mould’s operationalenvironments, cleanMOULD is a novel coating solution, based on a multi-layer DLC formulation that jointly optimizes boththe surface hardness and lubricity to minimize the impact of fretting wear. The current project is positioned to untap a verysignificant business opportunity by preparing our next-generation DLC coating for full market roll-out, while also thoroughlydocumenting its performance through large demonstration, in fully operational manufacturing pipelines within the premises ofkey industry players in the injection moulding industry.cleanMOULD has the potential to become a key enabling technology transversal to entire plastic industry. Overall, return-of- investment for cleanMOULD users is expected to be over 20x the expected coating costs, thus providing a very compellingvalue proposition. In addition, cleanMOULD represents a huge business opportunity for CSA, opening the perspective ofadding approx. €14 million over the 5-years post project as gross profits, yielding a global multiplier effect of over 10x for theratio between the expected profits and the costs of the current innovation project.