Inco opens new coating facility

Phase one of the $17.3-million nickel coating facility of Inco Europe in Wales was recently inaugurated by Canadian High Commissioner Royce Frith.

The high-tech project, at the Inco nickel refinery at Clydach, involves a coating technology in which a refinery intermediate gaseous vapor is decomposed to evenly coat substrates with pure nickel.

The first unit to come on-stream is the carbon fibre coating plant, in which extremely fine carbon fibres are individually and uniformly coated. Additional units are planned for the coating of other substrates. Applications for the nickel-coated fibres range from shielding against electromagnetic and radio frequency interference in computer, electronic and communications equipment, through aircraft lightning-strike protection, to metal matrix composites and sporting goods.