Tin touted as lead replacement in machining steel
By Staff -- Purchasing, 9/2/1999
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Engineering have developed a lead-free alternative to Grade 12L14 free-machining carbon steel which uses tin as its key alloying metal. The new steel results from research by Anthony J. DeArdo and C. Isaac Garcia, professors of materials science and engineering, are supported by an international consortium of steel producers and users.DeArdo and Garcia say their new "green steel" is more environmentally friendly than leaded steel and may be machined more easily.
The University of Pittsburgh has filed a patent for the new lead-free steel. The university also has signed a technology licensing agreement with the Nonleaded Free Machining Steel Consortium, which plans to produce the lead-free steel commercially.
Consortium members are steel bar makers MacSteel of Jackson, Mich.; Saarstahl Steel of Germany; Laurel Steel of Burlington, Ont.; and USS/Kobe Steel of Lorain, Ohio; plus lead scrap processor United Alloys & Steel of Buffalo, N.Y., and screw machine shop Curtis Screw, also of Buffalo.
Milton Harris, CEO of Harris Steel (Laurel Steel's parent), says the estimated world market for 12L14 steel is 2-3 million tons/year. At approximately $500 per ton, the potential market for the new lead-free steel is $1 billion.
USS/Kobe and Harris Steel have field-tested the steel. Arthur A. Boni, the university's director of technology management, says buyers at Ford Motor Co. and other automakers in the U.S. and Germany already have indicated a desire to use the new lead-free steel when it is available competitively.
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