Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is a key technology for producing hard coatings on cutting tools, but its sustainability is challenged by high energy consumption and low precursor utilization. We present a novel reactor concept for hard coating CVD inspired by spatial atomic layer deposition, aiming to reduce environmental impacts through minimized reactor volume, reduced thermal mass, and the possibility for precursor recirculation. The concept is based on a small modular inline reactor in where the substrates are coated with TiN, as a model system, by rotating between areas with TiCl4 and NH3 exposure, allowing separation of the precursors in the different gas outlets. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were used to optimize gas flow management and life cycle assessment (LCA) was used to compare the proposed design with a conventional industrial batch CVD reactor for TiN-coated cutting inserts. The analysis indicates reductions of approximately 40% in global warming potential and 50% in fossil resource scarcity without precursor recycling. Assuming recovery of 50% of TiCl4 and 80% of NH3, the environmental impacts were further reduced to approximately 36% and 23% of those of a conventional process for global warming and fossil resource scarcity, respectively.
Source: ChemRxiv
Institutions: Linköping University, Uppsala University, Seco Tools (Sweden)
Language: English
Subfield: Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225396296