John Crane Announces Joint Development Agreement with Advanced Diamond Technologies to Commercialize Ultrananocrystalline Diamond^TM Seal Faces

John Crane Inc. has announced its long-running collaboration with Advanced Diamond Technologies, Inc. (ADT) to develop and commercialize Ultrananocrystalline Diamond (UNCD) as a means to dramatically improve the friction and wear characteristics of mechanical seal faces. John Crane is now working with selected customers to validate the ability of UNCD enhanced seal faces to improve mechanical seal reliability and performance in demanding applications.

Diamonds have long been admired for their brilliance and strength. Although synthetic diamonds have been used for decades in cutting tools and abrasive applications, the difficulty of integrating real diamond with other materials has eliminated it as an engineering material for mechanical seals. John Crane - the world's leading supplier of engineered sealing systems and associated products - recognized the advantages of using the Earth's hardest material and has been working to find a method to integrate diamonds into their seals in a way that benefits their customers.

Ultrananocrystalline Diamond is the trade name for thin-film diamond material grown through a patented chemical vapor deposition process originally developed at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago. ADT licensed the fundamental patents for the process from Argonne in 2004. John Crane has been collaborating with Argonne and ADT for several years and formalized a technology and commercialization agreement with ADT last year.

"Working with Argonne and ADT has been extremely rewarding, and we are fortunate to be partnered with a group of people who have the perseverance to work through all of the analysis and performance testing which must be conducted to validate a new material technology before we can bring it to market," said Rick Page, VP-Marketing for John Crane Americas. "John Crane's unparalleled technical expertise in sealing solutions and their global distribution reach make them the ideal partner as we bring UNCD enhanced seals to market," said James Netzel, ADT's Director of Seals Engineering.

"We are grateful for the support we have received from the U.S. Dept. of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Industrial Technologies Program, and the National Science Foundation through their Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program. The support of both programs has been critical to our ability to perform the development and testing necessary to bring an advanced material to market for a demanding application like mechanical seals," said ADT President Neil Kane.

UNCD is not a diamond-like carbon material, but a crystalline diamond film consisting of nano-sized grains. UNCD surfaces are extremely hard and wear resistant, as strong as single-crystal diamond, and can be grown on the lapped surface of a seal face to produce a very thin film, mirror smooth, with excellent adhesion. In operation UNCD exhibits very low friction resulting in lower heat generation which saves energy and improves seal performance and reliability.

John Crane has performed scores of characterization tests in their Morton Grove, IL test laboratories, including: coefficient of friction measurement; determination of pressure/velocity (PV) limits; long-term operation in hot water, propane, and slurry; and other static and dynamic testing designed to validate the performance of UNCD and assist in optimizing the deposition process. The results confirm that UNCD significantly improves the tribological characteristics and performance of the seal faces.

To take advantage of the inherent properties of UNCD John Crane is targeting difficult applications involving poor lubricating fluids, liquids above their atmospheric boiling point, and abrasive slurries. Pump users interested in learning more about improving their seal performance through application of UNCD are invited to contact their local John Crane sales representative.

About Argonne National Laboratory The nation's first national laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory supports basic and applied scientific and technological research across a wide spectrum of disciplines. Argonne is operated by the University of Chicago for the U.S. Department of Energy. For more information, please visit www.anl.gov.

About Advanced Diamond Technologies
ADT is the world leader in developing and applying diamond films for industrial, electronic, mechanical, and medical applications. Formed in December 2003 to commercialize the UNCD technology developed at Argonne, ADT is the licensee to the Argonne portfolio of application and process patents for synthesizing and using UNCD films. ADT is also a 2006 winner of the Nanotech Briefs' Nano 50TM Awards, which recognize the top innovators to impact the state of the art in nanotechnology. Its website is www.thindiamond.com .