Speaker
Description
A modern technique – Plasma Electrolytic Polishing (PEP), has been growing more attention in the various fields of industry for many applications including jewellery, aeronautics, automotive, medical and others. Surface cleaning, deburring, polishing are the key processes that can be done within the PEP. It is important to have more and more efficient superconducting radio frequency (SRF) cavities, which performance is highly depended on substrate preparation. The application of PEP into the SRF technology protocol may benefit on various fields: economical, ecological, scientific. The usage of greener solution is a sustainable choice in 2022, that allow avoiding the HF acid and other concentrated compounds usage, thus saving budgets, lower the security risks. The substitution of some mechanical treatments and cleaning steps can be a huge leap in the time production of any single cavity. Main economic advantage of PEP over EP is of course the performance of polishing, where it can achieve 10 times faster erosion rate. Additionally, the levelling effect take place faster in case of PEP than EP at the same removal thicknesses.
In this talk it will be presented recent advancements on the Plasma Electrolytic Polishing at LNL, a working solution for Nb PEP will be disclosed. The advantages and main obstacles of PEP application will be discussed, together with characterisation and comparison to the main Nb treatments available: Buffered Chemical Polishing and Electropolishing.
