• NOMATEN, the research agency of NCBJ, will conduct material research for Mercedes Benz Manufacturing Poland, managing the engine and battery factory in Jawor in Lower Silesia.
• Thomas Kaiser, production and maintenance director at the factory, joined the NOMATEN Industrial Advisors Network, whose task is to develop and improve methods of cooperation between enterprises and research units.
• NOMATEN is a center of excellence for materials for industry and radiopharmaceuticals, operating at the National Center for Nuclear Research, cooperating with the French nuclear agency CEA and the Finnish VTT institute. Received prestigious grants from KE Horyzont2020 and the Foundation for Polish Science.
• The Mercedes electric car engine and battery factory is fully powered by renewable energy.

Mercedes Benz Manufacturing Poland chose the National Center for Nuclear Research as a partner in material research on the wear of tools for machining engine components. The expertise will be carried out by a team of scientists operating at the NCBJ Center of Excellence NOMATEN. The technological challenge that the factory in Jawor intends to solve thanks to the cooperation with NCBJ and NOMATEN is the heterogeneity of the ceramic tools used in the cylinder honing process, i. e. too fast wear of the tools and the deposition of undesirable residues in them after machining.

The research will be led by Professor Łukasz Kurpaska, head of the Functional Properties research group, and Iwona Jóźwik, Ph. D., head of the Materials Characterization research group. The latest infrastructure installed at NOMATEN last year will be used to prepare the expertise: incl. X-ray diffractometer, non-destructive examination of some mechanical properties of the material and one of the most modern scanning electron microscopes (SEM) in Poland.

„NOMATEN will carry out for Mercedes, among others macroscopic tests of the surface of ceramic elements before and after operation, microstructural tests, chemical and phase composition in selected areas of the tool surface, phase analysis by X-ray diffraction, tests of the surface topography of ceramic elements and mechanical tests of these elements” – enumerated by Paweł Sobkowicz, Professor, director for the organization of scientific activities at the NOMATEN Center of Excellence.

Thomas Kaiser, production and maintenance director of the factory in Jawor, joined the NOMATEN Network of Industrial Advisors, whose task is to develop good practices related to the cooperation of companies with research units. This body also includes representatives of, among others chemical, construction and energy industries.

NOMATEN is a project of the National Center for Nuclear Research in cooperation with the Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives (CEA – France) and Teknologian Tutkimuskeskus VTT Oy (VTT – Finland). For its activities, the project received long-term support from the Foundation for Polish Science (FNP) and the European Commission. NOMATEN’s priority is research into materials resistant to extreme conditions (high temperatures, corrosion, radiation) for applications in the nuclear, energy, chemical and metallurgical industries, as well as the development of modern radiopharmaceuticals.