The company said the 170-metric-ton pilot line, installed in Karlstein, Germany, is a discontinuous vacuum coating line for steel coils. After wet cleaning, coils weighing up to five metric tons, an uncoiled length of up to 1,000 m and a width of up to 650 mm are fed into an evacuated chamber. Then, a three-stage process consisting of plasma pretreatment, magnetron-based precoating and a newly developed plasma-enhanced evaporation solution is used. 

“We can now coat high-strength materials that could not previously be coated using conventional means due to their sensitivity to high temperatures,” said André Herzog, chief technology officer of NEOVAC. 

The vacuum coating technology offers advantages such as higher energy efficiency during coating compared to conventional processes and lower consumption of resources since less material is required for a uniform, even coating. 

“This [technology] opens up completely new possibilities for using ultrahigh-strength materials with active corrosion protection in the automotive, aerospace, and lightweight construction sectors,” said Herzog. 

The company said the new solution is based on a cold process that doesn’t alter the material properties while ensuring maximum coating quality.