Development
Calcarb Limited is committed to continuous development of its insulation materials and to the optimisation of process efficiencies.
Most materials development is undertaken in collaboration with key customers, or at the request of other customers, to meet the various demands that are put on the insulation materials. Having prototyped a material for a given application, these are assessed for commercial application and then offered as an alternative insulation material to existing and new customers.
Process optimisation allows Calcarb Ltd to maintain production costs, where possible, and improve thermal and structural efficiencies without significant additional costs to customers.
In the past a range of CBCF materials were developed to meet the conflicting demands of improved thermal efficiency and the need for a robust material. Hence the range of CBCF products VF-CBCF [most thermally efficient], Std-CBCF, D-CBCF, HD-CBCF [most robust].
The lower density CVI materials, CVI 20 through CVI 40, were developed to enable longer operational life in reactive environments and increased mechanical strength, without significant decreases in thermal efficiency.
Halogen purified materials were developed to meet the demands of very low residual metallic carbons for use in electronic, crystal growing and specialist glass manufacture, where ppm metallic impurities can have a significant effect on product qualities.
Other successful materials developments have been in coatings. Calcarb Ltd produces an excellent foil coated product, which has been shown to assist the maintaining of excellent thermal uniformity within the hot zone of most heat treatment furnaces. Calcoat-M has proved to be a preferred coating in many casting operations, where it shows good resistance to metal splashing and is easily repaired in situ. Calcarb Ltd's Patented Calcoat CVD is the only coating of this type available internationally. It can seal the surface from moderate chemical attack, with no limitation to the complexity of the parts that can be coated - it does not have the cementing issues related to the bonding of foils and CFC's to the insulation surface.
Recent developments have been the higher density CVI materials CVI 50 to CVI 90, which are currently being developed as the precursors for several new technical ceramics within various industrial sectors. The higher CVI materials are also being used in their own right as lower thermal mass alternatives to graphite materials for tooling and gas-feed nozzles.
A new material currently at the prototype stage is SiC-CVI 24. This is CVI 24 material, where a sheath of SiC has been deposited by Chemical Vapour Deposition onto the carbon fibre, giving an excellent chemically resistant surface. Under test conditions in hydrogen, this material has shown 82% reduction in methane generation, compared to equivalent CVI 24 materials.
Calcarb Ltd has a small materials laboratory in house, however most of its materials development testing and analysis is undertaken at internationally acclaimed research centres such as The Imperial College of Science, Technology & Medicine, London; Shiva Technologies, France and Columbia Analytical Services, Kelso, WA. USA.
