Carbon based functional coatings for tribological applications

The automotive industry is an essential branch for the industrial site Saxony. Within the past 20 years high-tech production centers have been built by the leading German car producers Volkswagen, BMW, and Porsche in Zwickau, Dresden, Chemnitz and Leipzig. According to estimations about 10 % of the jobs in Saxony subjected to social insurance are settled in the car related industry. This industrial sector on the one hand faces strong competitors from Asia and the USA, and on the other hand is challenged by the CO2 emission goals of the European Union for the next decade. These complex circumstances have to be dealt with innovative concepts in general and new approaches in research and development (R & D) in particular. The subproject ECEMP D1 is developing new, nanostructured, wear-resistant tribological coatings for the automotive engineering. These coatings provide a significant reduction of the friction in wear loaded car components and enable the more efficient use of fuel and materials.