Nickel-Coated Tungsten Carbide (WC)

A blend of cobalt and tungsten carbide is commonly used in the cutting tools industry, because cobalt serves as a binder for the tungsten carbide. To create the blend, the liquid-phase sintering process has to be used, which results in a metallurgical reaction between cobalt and the tungsten carbide, damaging the structure of the tungsten carbide. Our metal-coated WC can be processed at much lower temperatures (solid phase) to avoid such damage. This allows for enhanced performance of the cutting tools made with metal-coated WC, especially the Co/WC and/or Ni/WC. The cobalt and tungsten carbide blend is used because of cobalt's sintering properties. Since our metal-coated WC can be processed at much lower temperature ranges, nickel can be used as a binder to replace the more expensive cobalt and still result in similar properties. Other coatings on abrasive materials such as diamond, cubic boron nitride, boron carbide or tungsten carbide may be sprayed thermally to create hard surfaces for a variety of cutting tool and abrasive applications.

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