en.Wedoany.com Reported - On June 29, China's "GNT High-End Roller Shaft Surface Strengthening Center (Changzhou)" was officially inaugurated and put into operation. Lu Ke, Director of the Liaoning Materials Laboratory and Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, led a team to visit the Baowu Zhiwei Baosteel Roller site and jointly unveiled the center with relevant Baowu Zhiwei leaders. Both sides engaged in in-depth exchanges on new pathways for the industrial application of Gradient Nanotechnology (GNT) in the high-end roller shaft field. This original technology, transitioning "from 0 to 1," has now truly achieved a complete closed loop from the laboratory to the production site, and from basic theory to industrial mass production. This also marks a key step for Baowu Zhiwei Baosteel Roller in firmly implementing Baowu's "Three Innovations, Four Transformations, Five Strategies" requirements, deepening industry-university-research collaboration, leading the upgrade of the roller industry, and setting a benchmark for new quality productive forces in the sector.
Gradient Nanotechnology (GNT) is an original and disruptive achievement developed by Academician Lu Ke's team over nearly three decades. Adhering to the core concept of "Harnessing strength through simplicity, forging the extraordinary, and awakening the intrinsic power of metals," it breaks the traditional technical route of relying on high-alloy and chrome plating to enhance metal performance. By constructing a gradient nanostructure solely through surface plastic deformation, without additional coatings, it features low energy consumption and no pollution, significantly improving metal hardness, wear resistance, and fatigue life. This is a core technology independently controllable in the field of advanced metal materials, precisely aligning with the key basic materials research layout of the "15th Five-Year Plan."
As the core platform for the roller industry under Baowu, Baowu Zhiwei Baosteel Roller proactively engaged with the academician team in early 2024. The relevant responsible team visited the Liaoning Materials Laboratory, Chongqing Institute of Nanometals, and other institutions multiple times. After over two years of collaborative efforts, they completed thousands of tests and batch production line verifications, establishing a deeply integrated "industry-university-research-application" innovation consortium. To date, GNT has completed industrial verification on 597 roller shafts across 35 ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgical production lines. Application results show that rollers processed with GNT exhibit high roughness retention, strong resistance to indentation, and excellent fatigue resistance. Some products have already achieved performance comparable to traditional chrome plating processes, and the rolled products also demonstrate superior surface quality, delivering multiple values such as quality improvement, efficiency enhancement, cost reduction, and green production.
During the exchange, both sides agreed that jointly building the Changzhou GNT High-End Roller Shaft Surface Strengthening Center is a key measure to implement the national science and technology innovation strategy. Baowu Zhiwei Baosteel Roller will fully leverage the cutting-edge research results of the academician team, rely on its over 60 years of roller manufacturing foundation, increase resource investment, deepen joint R&D, and cultivate new quality productive forces with hardcore technology. Academician Lu Ke highly recognized the effectiveness of the cooperation. He stated that Baosteel Roller, as a leading enterprise in the industry with prominent industrial advantages, is an excellent carrier for the large-scale application of GNT. Promoting the industrialization of this technology is an important lever to fill the gaps in high-end metal materials and achieve technological self-reliance. The laboratory will establish a normalized joint research mechanism to provide full-process scientific support for technology application. Both sides will also clarify the applicable scope of the technology based on various working conditions, continuously expand application tracks such as new energy and industrial mother machines, polish the independent technology brand, and extend the industrialization chain of original technologies.
In the next step, based on the consensus reached during this exchange, both sides will continue to advance the industrialization of GNT, deepen strategic cooperation, accelerate the standardization, scaling, and market application of GNT, empower the green and low-carbon transformation of the metallurgical industry through deep industry-research integration, and contribute solid strength to Baowu's goal of building a world-class enterprise and supporting the country's achievement of technological self-reliance in the materials field.
