ERBICOL S.A.

Erbicol SA is active since 1950 and employs 40 persons. Core business is the manufacturing of extra hard materials like ruby for the watch industry, white sapphire disks, cylinders and pistons for micro-pumps, plates for scrapers, as well as micro-magnets in rare earth materials for the watch industry and other industries. Since more than 10 years Erbicol SA is also active in the production of silicon infiltrated silicon carbide foams, perfecting production technique and quality of product. Development of new products and research of new applications has been in the center of the last decade and the starting point for collaborations with universities and istitutes. For this particular product typical clients are those companies producing devices which are working in hostile environments, having need of a material with high thermal condictivity, high thermoshock resistance and high corrosivity resistance. Example of final products are gas burners, radiation plates, reformers for fuel cell systems, catalyst support and many more. Erbicol SA usually performs, together with the client, materials selection and component design followed by prototype manufacturing and testing. For the ceramic production Erbicol SA is equipped with:

-     Coating device for foams and other ceramic structure precursors

-     Debinding furnaces

-     Sintering furnace

-     Rectifying tool

Erbicol SA has steadily developed in the field of technical ceramics and increased product range to satisfy specific customers needs. Thanks to collaboration with universities and research institutes the company has studied following main skills:

-     Foam architecture (pore size and shape)

-     Foam mechanical consistency

-     Material properties at elevated temperature in aggressive environments

-     Foam geometry for different applications

-     Foam emissivity at high temperature

-     Foam thermal properties

For the present project Erbicol SA is operating on the production of the prototype and responsible for the industrialisation process. With the experience in producing Si-SiC ceramic body and the machinery tools needed therefore Erbicol SA will manufacture, debind, convert and sinter the ceramic heat exchanger. The work will be performed by Erbicol SA engineers and technicians with broad experience in ceramic manufacturing. The following executive staff will be in charge of managing the research and development work:

Luca Romelli is Erbicol SA president and managing director. He has thirty years experiences in manufacturing of extra hard materials. During the last 10 years Mr. Romelli has specialized in marketing and production set up of technical ceramics and in particular of Si-SiC ceramic foams.

Sandro Gianella is Erbicol SA manager for the Department of Ceramics. He studied chemistry at ETH in Zürich where he received his Bachelor Diploma and then specialized in inorganic chemistry and material science. In particular his research work performed at ETH on new high resistance ceramics is pertinent with the present proposal.