CRMgroup

CRM (Centre de Recherche en Métallurgie) employs qualified technicians, engineers and PhDs, working on various aspects of research and developments in metallic and associated materials. Research activities go from upstream making processes (e.g steel industry process improvement) to customer’s requested solutions, including new coatings technologies in a sustainable way, for example in the field of energy, health and environment, automotive, construction, etc. R&D performed in CRM Group is intended to answer industrials’ and SMEs’ and include breakthrough and incremental R&D projects, co-engineering projects, application oriented projects (solutions or systems), technical assistance to its industrial members, and guidance services to SME's. CRM benefits from a large network in Wallonia through its 46 members (industrials and SMEs) and through numerous collaborations with universities. 

The involvement of CRM in this project relies on a strong implication in coatings and surface functionalization to achieve innovative material properties, and on the capability to link upstream researches to industrial applications. For this, CRM owns various coaters from the lab scale to the industrial pilot scale and also owns a large characterization pool, including physico-chemical surface analysis tools (SEM, XPS, SIMS, FTIR and UV spectroscopy, XRF, ellipsometry, profilometry, etc.) and equipment to test functional properties such as mechanical surface properties, surface energy and wettability, ageing resistance, tribology etc.

More specifically in relationship with Alti2de project, CRM group is able to threat very complex material thanks to magnetron sputtering deposition, from lab scale to pilot and industrial lines, in co-deposition mode, with up to 4 simultaneous different materials, from RT to 850°C, in situ DC, DC pulsed or RF deposition modes. Multiscale surface mechanical and tribological characterization tools will also be performed (nano- and micro-indentation, temperature dependent measurements, Pin-on-disk tribometry, industrial tribotester and more).

In particular CRM has contributed to the industrialization of new products on metallic substrates (specially steel) based on plasma coating and has contributed to the industrialization of vacuum deposition technologies for roll to roll large scale application. Throughout several collaborative projects CRM has developed over many years a significant know-how on surface functionalization and coatings based on plasma deposition technics (like PVD, PACVD, JVD) for different properties and applications such as corrosion resistance, aesthetic, active and catalytic surface, energy  and more recently surface mechanical and tribology properties. Thus CRM has gained skills and know–how to achieve thin films and coatings from lab to industrial scale on metallic materials (specifically steel substrates) but also to analyze them and optimize the substrate surface state, as the feasibility and coating adherence are often induced by the substrate nature and mainly by the substrate outmost layer.

These subjects are still of interest for the ongoing CRM projects related for example with corrosion protection and scratch resistant surfaces (on going PhD thesis).

CRM is member in various national and international projects and has still several bilateral projects for industrial clients (large companies, SMEs) going on. CRM results are also often cited as references at the international level (at the Galvatech annual congress for instance).