Around 80 participants followed the call to Frankfurt for Atotech's first corrosion protection summit since the pandemic. Among other things, some guest lectures directly from the industry were highly interesting, for example from Sven Reinold, Managing Director of Strähle Galvanik, who reported on efficiency topics in his own company and on the massive savings achieved by modern low-temperature cleaning systems. Stefan Michalitsch from the screw manufacturer Nedschroef Altena reported on the concrete challenges posed by the new Mercedes specification MBN 10544 on the subject of friction values, from the perspective of a Tier1. It is noteworthy with regard to the factory standard, which will come into force in 2024, that so far there are only a few suppliers of coating systems for screws that meet the complex requirements regarding multiple tightening. An alternative with regard to energy supply was shown in a presentation on the climate-neutral generation of heat, cold and electricity by gasifying wood chips and operating a combined heat and power plant. Dr. Christina Schmidt from Porsche gave a presentation on safeguarding corrosion protection for electrical components, in particular housings in the context of electromobility in the splash zone of the vehicle. The event was concluded with a presentation on the subject of self-tapping screws, which now enable remarkable pretensioning forces. However, this requires correspondingly optimized coating technologies.
Overall, the Corrosion Protection Summit showed a focus on topics related to efficiency and sustainability, starting with the opening lecture on the CO2 footprint of electroplating and ways to reduce it. Depending on throughput, up to 40 percent CO2 can be saved by using low-temperature degreasing. Furthermore, membrane anodes offer significant potential to improve sustainability, especially because the formation of cyanide is reduced by more than half. In addition, current density increases by up to 25 percent and the electrolyte remains more stable overall. Other presentations in this context dealt with current multimetal-capable pretreatments and the question of whether and to what extent there can be advantages in replacing alkaline zinc nickel processes with sour zinc systems. The substitution of nickel by high-alloy zinc-iron coatings was also on the agenda.
The event thus offered an interesting spectrum of content covering all aspects of current corrosion protection issues - and the feedback from participants was consistently positive. You can read a detailed report in issue 6-7 2023 and shortly online at oberflaeche.de.