Dr. Debashis Bhattacharjee
Vice President
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Topic:
New Generation Steels and Materials with Superior Corrosion Resistance
Affiliation:
Vice President Technology & New Materials Business, Tata Steel Limited
Abstract:
Steels are generally considered as more environment friendly than other materials because of the high degree of recyclability. Variety of new generation steels such as super duplex stainless steel, high nitrogen steels, Corten steel etc., have been developed with superior corrosion resistance property and these are extensively used in different applications in structural, railways, power and energy sectors. Variety of coatings have also been developed to improve corrosion resistance of plane carbon steels. Global trend is shifting from conventional zinc coatings to Zn/Al based alloy coatings, i.e., addition of ternary, quaternary and even quinary alloying elements to impart enhanced sacrificial and barrier corrosion properties. These coatings can offer excellent corrosion protection owing to the complex microstructural features and their stable corrosion products. Composite coatings are also a major focus of development as they offer additional functionalities for new application areas, especially in construction sector. Innovative processing techniques such as physical vapor deposition, chemical vapour deposition and amorphous coating have also been developed to achieve superior corrosion resistance. New generation structural materials such as polymer matrix composites have inherent corrosion resistance because of the polymeric matrix. Together with reinforcement with glass, carbon, aramid or other fibres, the polymer matrix composites provide useful combination of strength and corrosion resistance. The density of these composite materials is 1/3rd to 1/6th that of steel. Thus, these new materials offer unique combination of properties that will make them suitable for many applications where concrete, steel or aluminium are used today. The internal panels and components of railway passenger coaches are already transforming to composites. In water carrying pipes, pressure vessels for water filtration, chemical tanks and pipes, composites are already favoured materials. The world will see progressive increase in use of polymer matrix composite materials. Graphene has many unique properties. Graphene nano-platelets in an appropriate suspension, can be used as paint. The graphene platelets have high resistivity across thickness and make the path of electrons tortuous around the platelet boundaries. This results high barrier resistance to corrosion. Graphene based paints, applied to steel structures, provide twice to three time more corrosion resistance than normal paints used for such purposes.
Biography :
Dr Bhattacharjee is currently Vice President Technology & New Materials Business at Tata Steel. He is responsible for all of technology and R&D related to the steel business, from raw materials beneficiation to products at the customers’ premises. He oversees both incremental and disruptive technology development. He is also responsible for developing business for Tata Steel in materials other than steel. Among disruptive technology, Dr Bhattacharjee’s team is actively scaling up multiple technologies for carbon capture and utilization, production of cheap, green hydrogen and beneficiation of low grade ores to produce value added products such as battery materials. His team is also developing hybrid materials solutions for mobility sector including automotive and railways. In new materials, Dr Bhattacharjee is developing businesses in three verticals – composite materials, graphene and medical materials. In three years’ time this business have grown from zero to above Rs 500cr annual sales and next year plans to cross Rs 1000cr. Dr Bhattacharjee did his BTech from Jadavpur University, MTech from IIT Kanpur and PhD from University of Cambridge. He has done two post-doctoral fellowships. One at Rolls Royce Technology Centre in Cambridge and the second at University of Birmingham. He has 50 peer reviewed publications and 22 patents to his credit. Dr Bhattacharjee is Fellow of the Indian Academy of Engineering and Indian Institute of Metals. He was Visiting Professor at Imperial College, London, at University of Warwick, UK, and at University of Science & Technology, Beijing, China. He is Chairman of the Board of Tata Steel Advanced Materials Ltd and of Ceramat – an advanced ceramics company.
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