In materials engineering, a component’s internal properties determine its success in service. Mechanical stresses, aggressive wear, and corrosive environments pose daily challenges to tools and components. Targeted heat treatment of steel and other metals precisely tailors material properties to your specific requirements.
Whether you need extremely hard surfaces, corrosion protection, or optimized toughness – we offer the right processes to perfect the microstructure of your components. Learn more about our core competencies: boriding and stainless steel hardening.
Innovative Heat Treatment: An Overview of Our Solutions
1. Boriding – Wear-Resistant Surfaces
Boriding is a thermochemical diffusion process for surface hardening in which boron diffuses into the surface layer of steel. Unlike traditional methods such as case hardening or nitriding, this process creates an extremely hard, boride layer. These layers offer unbeatable protection against abrasive wear. Even at high temperatures, the protective effect remains stable, while the core of the component retains its shock-absorbing toughness.
Find out more about boronizing
2. Hardening stainless steel – maximum hardness without compromising corrosion resistance
For austenitic stainless steels and nickel-based alloys, we use our patented BORINOX® process. In this low-temperature thermochemical treatment, atoms diffuse into the material’s surface without forming chromium carbides or nitrides. This results in a dramatic increase in wear resistance, while the material’s inherent corrosion resistance is fully preserved.
Why choosing the right heat treatment is crucial
Every material reacts differently to thermal cycles. Without the necessary expertise in vacuum technology and phase transformation (such as the formation of martensite through rapid cooling), dimensional distortion is a risk. Our goal is to minimize distortion to near zero through optimized process curves and state-of-the-art atmospheres.
| Process | Primary Objective | Typical Materials |
| Boronizing | Protection against extreme abrasive wear | cast iron, Low-alloy steels, tool steels, stainless steel, Inconel, cobalt chromium |
| Hardening of stainless steels | Wear protection + corrosion resistance | Austenitic & martensitic, ferritic and duplex stainless steels, inconel |
By precisely controlling parameters such as furnace atmosphere, diffusion temperature, and holding time, we modify the material structure so that subsequent steps – such as the final machining of the workpieces – can be carried out efficiently and with minimal damage to the material. Our comprehensive quality assurance process guarantees you reproducible results of the highest quality.
Our Services: Consultation and Sample Processing for Your Project
Are you unsure which hardening or coating process offers the best results for your specific material? At BorTec, we leave nothing to chance.
- Customized material consultation: Our experts analyze your application and the chemical composition of your material to select the best process from both a technical and economic standpoint.
- Testing using a sample component: Simply send us a sample or a sample workpiece in advance. We conduct test treatments in our in-house metallographic laboratory.
- Precise validation: We then precisely verify how well the process (e.g., BORINOX® or BOROCOAT®) performed on your product and document the results for you.
Take advantage of our more than 25 years of application experience to achieve the perfect balance of wear protection and corrosion resistance for your components.
Frequently Asked Questions About Heat Treatment of Steel
What is the difference between boriding, nitriding, and case hardening?
In case hardening, the surface layer is enriched with carbon; in nitriding, it is enriched with nitrogen. Both processes increase hardness. Boriding, on the other hand, forms an intermetallic FeB or Fe₂B layer, which is significantly harder and more wear-resistant than conventional nitriding or case-hardened layers.
Why is vacuum hardening advantageous?
Vacuum heat treatments prevent oxidation of the component surface. Since no interfering gases are present, the surface remains bright. Additionally, the process can be precisely controlled, which minimizes thermal distortion and facilitates quality assurance.
Can all steels be treated the same way?
No. The choice of process depends heavily on the chemical composition of the steel. While some materials are ideally suited for induction hardening or precipitation hardening, high-alloy grades require special cycles in a vacuum to achieve the optimal balance of hardness and toughness.
Protect your components for the long term – tap into our expertise
Optimize the material properties of your components today. Whether you’re working on a prototype or a large-scale production run, our materials engineering experts can provide comprehensive advice on the right heat treatment for metals or steel and surface coating solutions for your project.
