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Nano Talks, are a series of Interviews which aims to find out where Nanotechnology stands today, we are reaching out to experts from different fields to gain insights about the technology in their industry and also about the possibilities, problems and limitations for incorporating the Nanotechnology.
To start with, we reached out to Automobile Industry, an industry where different factors directly contribute to the performance, due to the competition in this vertical of the market, everyone strives to get the best of the materials that can be used.
We reached out to Raghu Reddy, an expert who has been working in the R&D Department of Automobile Industry for the past 7 years.
DISCLAIMER: All opinions expressed are personal and not the views of Company.
Raghu has worked on different materials, such as customised polymers and alloys based on the application. Raghu feels that Nanotechnology is something that has been around for a long time, but in the last couple of years, it has shown potential to become part of the products.
When asked where could Nanotechnology play a vital role, his answer was
“Coatings that can withstand high temperatures of the engine around 2500 degree Celsius in the case of overheating”,
and also that the temperatures are loaded cyclically so that should also be considered a factor when a coating is chosen. He also said that if Nanomaterials can be used as composites it would result in reducing the weight of the vehicle, which directly results in the increase of its performance.
“There is a lot of potential of these materials but hasn’t been used in any of everyday products, I feel that these products are produced very low quantities, the quantities are not enough to be capable to support to mass manufacturing facilities of the manufacturing industry.”
He also said that there are a few major reasons for any new technology to become a part of the manufacturing process those are Temperature Resistance when a material is being used in engines it has to be prepared in a way to withstand these temperatures. Wear and Tear should be low, any material that is used should have very low wear rate and tear rate as all these are long-term applications and not a one time use application this determines the durability of the end product. Price Point is one of the major factors when considering the market, the price point is chosen accordingly, and hence all the materials should be in the budget constraints to be used.
We asked him where does he see Nanotechnology in 5 Years, he answered We didn’t know what Nanotechnology is in the past 5 Years, now there has been enormous research about it that is being done.
“We were using micro gauge for measuring, now the precision has been improved and the accuracy has to be more and hence the new technology evolved”,
The technology and materials are in a sampling quantity, but not for large-scale commercial applications.Space Industry might be the first industry to adopt it but is not ready for everyday applications. He feels one day these materials will become a part of the automobile industry.