Graph Engineering is an Irish-owned, family-run business with over 50 years of experience specialising in the treatment of aluminium. They offer a high-capacity and rapid-turnaround anodising service. They specialise in sulphuric acid anodising, hard anodising, PTFE impregnation, chromate conversion, spray coatings and dry film lubricants.

Anodising is a technique for forming protective oxide (anodic) layers on metal alloys such as aluminium and titanium. The bulk of titanium parts for the medical device industry are currently being anodised overseas.

CREST have been working on anodic surfaces for more than 10 years, developing aesthetic coatings that enable the finish to withstand exposure to extreme pH conditions.

Through an Enterprise Ireland Commercialisation Fund project (ADAP), a pilot-scale production line was built in CREST in collaboration with Graph. The pilot line allowed the team to investigate new technologies, support ongoing patent activity and develop new projects with Irish companies without impinging upon the daily workload of the Graph production line. Some of these coatings have been commercialised with Irish companies and are now in full-scale production (e.g. Volvo XC60).

The CREST and Graph team have developed new anodising techniques that can be introduced onto existing production lines.

With the analytical expertise in CREST, new products are characterised by electron microscopy and accelerated corrosion testing according to recognised international standards. Based on work carried out in CREST, Graph has recently started providing a competitive service in Ireland for Titanium anodising.

The team joined a consortium with SEAM (WIT), Shivo Medical and Stryker Orthopaedics working on next-generation 3-D printed medical devices. The consortium is funded under the Disruptive Technology Innovation Fund.

Testimonial

"Through work on the anodising line at CREST TU Dublin we have been able to significantly improve efficiencies on our commercial process line. These improvements have led directly to an increase in almost 55% on export sales to automotive industry clients and an increase of 12% in employee numbers in R&D."

Dr Sive Geoghegan
CEO, Graph Engineering