For any emerging advanced material, a suitable manufacturing method and infrastructure, providing reliable mass production and sustained quality at affordable cost, has been the main challenge for commercial development. This manufacturing infrastructure is also required to be integrated into a vertical portfolio of engineering solutions, including materials, processes, facilities, and technical expertise.

A firm’s adoption of advanced materials and transition from conventional materials starts with a balanced consideration of cost and performance efficiencies. Furthermore, the adoption process needs to pass a series of timely evaluation stages before confirmation of application for mass production. The evaluation stages can be costly if they are not appropriately organized and supported. Organizations and companies belonging to the advanced material sector should have ample engineering and servicing capability to support a client’s evaluation stages to pass the threshold successfully. They should have the proper skill and capacity to meet the needs of high volume production.

Founded in 2014, PrometalTech has been developing high-quality amorphous metal solutions and working on their applications with state-ofthe- art process technologies. PrometalTech has grown extensive in-house capability and installed enough capacity for high volume production to meet customer’s stringent requirements for mobile electronic devices, wearable electronics, luxury goods, sports goods, medical devices, and other related industries.

Liquidalloy: The Next-Gen Amorphous Metal

PrometalTech provides the BMG (Bulk Metallic Glass or Bulk Amorphous Metal) material solution within a vertically integrated system under the trade name of LiquidalloyTM. “Liquidalloy is our proprietary BMG material solution, and it is fully integrated with engineering solutions from prototyping to high volume manufacturing facilities developed by PrometalTech,” says Anita Lin, founder, and chairwoman of PrometalTech.

LiquidalloyTM has a relatively low melting temperature (lower than 900°C) enough to be die-cast in metal molds for high productivity. Meanwhile, Liquidalloy is exceptionally suitable to make net-shape parts directly out of the mold and to minimize CNC machining time and cost to manufacture the final product. This is usually not the case for other commercial high-performance alloys like stainless steel (melting temperature higher than 1400°C) or titanium alloys (higher than 1600°C). In addition to this unique property, Liquidalloy also provides superior mechanical and physical properties to commercial highperformance alloys like stainless steel or titanium alloys.

For mechanical property, Liquidalloy has a yield strength of more than 1.4GPa and is several times higher to 304SS and 1.5-times to 6-4 Titanium alloy (6-4Ti). Its hardness (500Hv) is 2.5-times to 304SS and 1.3-times to 6-4Ti to make the part scratch resistant. And its linear elastic mechanical behavior combined with the lower elastic modulus (80-100GPa) absorbs the external impact energy readily without causing any plastic deformation in the structure.

Liquidalloy is corrosion-resistant, mechanically stable at ambient temperatures, and provides a warm feel on human touch thanks to its lower thermal conductivity. And it has a low thermal expansion ratio (7-8x10- 6/°C) closer to glasses or ceramics, which can be effectively applied to precision and optic structure components requiring hermetic and water-resistance seals.

Liquidalloy is our proprietary BMG material solution, and it is fully integrated with engineering solutions and high volume manufacturing facilities developed by PrometalTech

By employing customized polishing methods, Liquidalloy can be polished to have nanometerscale surface smoothness with an exceptionally glossy appearance and high cosmetic quality for luxury products, metal mirrors, and exterior structural components of electronics products, etc. The high damping speed of Liquidalloy can be used to enhance the acoustic performance of housings and components in audio applications.

Quality AM Supplier

PrometalTech offers a series of BMG Liquidalloy formulations for meeting a client’s various requirements: Zirconium-based alloys (PLA-1, PLA- 2, and PLA-3), Copper-based alloys (PLA-4) and Titanium-based alloys (PLA-10). Each alloy has different processing and physical characteristics such as GFA (Glass Forming Ability) and fluidity for casting and precision forming while having the same levels of superior mechanical, chemical, and cosmetic properties. The density of these alloys can also be tailored to a certain extent for applications where the weight becomes a key performance parameter. Zirconium- and Copperbased alloys are of similar densities (6.5~7.0g/ccm) where Titanium-based alloy is of around 5.0g/ccm. The company’s engineering team will provide the best alloy suggestions based on the complexity, min/max wall thickness, and weight requirement of a client’s product design.

Located at an ecological high-tech industrial plant area, PrometalTech’s high-vacuum manufacturing process with a strict cleanliness and control system enables the full usage of raw materials with 100 percent recyclability in the production of sustainable quality products. For the process structure, the company has the complete in-house process capability from raw material alloying to finishing end products, which is built by its own dedicated and proprietary facilities. PrometalTech’s design engineering department, having a full suite of CAD/CAE/CFD (Computer-aided Fluid Dynamics) capability, works closely with clients starting from the initial concept design stage. Via the DFM (Design for Manufacturability) discussions, PrometalTech’s QDM service enables faster and lower cost evaluation for clients to develop novel solutions.

PrometalTech is the only and the best BMG supplier capable of integrating all key technologies vertically in one-stop-shop: From the development of BMG alloy compositions covering several categories of Zirconium-based, Titanium-based, and Copper-based Liquidalloys to providing the best solution to meet client’s various specifications and requirements, to final quality-assuring NDT technologies before shipping of final products.

Expertise and Experience

Seasoned experts at PrometalTech closely work together with clients from the preliminary design stage to the client’s successful evaluation to go to mass production. Clients can readily minimize the time and financial expenses for the adoption of Liquidalloy into their products to make enhanced products and increased value. The mass production schedule and SCM (Supply Chain Management) can be quickly arranged to fit into the client’s plan through a flexible selection of production solution sets provided by PrometalTech.

Clients can take advantage of Liquidalloy properties into their products and applications to achieve remarkable differences in a competitive market. By the creative combinations of design and material performance, the clients can make their products thinner, stronger, more durable, cosmetically better, higher performance, and more eco-friendly than the conventional materials can provide. Overall, they can accelerate the innovation in their product cycle and achieve higher novelty with practical high volume manufacturing capability.

While Liquidalloy provides highly attractive characteristics to clients for their market, the dedicated manufacturing processes are also highly efficient and productive. Given the low thermal expansion ratio (shrinkage ratio), the cast part can achieve much higher dimensional tolerance and precision than traditional die-cast or metal injection molding. This allows to get near-net shaping directly out of the mold and minimizes CNC machining time to get the final products without any machining-induced failure (deformation, etc.) of the final part.

As an example, in one case in late 2018, one of the leading mobile phone clients had a novel idea of application of ultra-high resolution camera, and the camera case required to be made of non-magnetic metal and to hold the internal optic components (including high-resolution lenses) stably and precisely. PrometalTech collaborated during the design works with the client to achieve the best suitable Liquidalloy product design for the components. The firm also worked to set the best manufacturing process/product design for highest yield (enabling direct-shaping of a partial thin wall with a thickness of 0.25mm), designing enough strength and rigidity to avoid deformation or breakage in production-handling, during assembly, and even at drop tests of assembled set with flip-open state of camera. With the successful adoption of Liquidalloy components, the client’s new mobile phone got considerable success and popularity. The unique design and functional differences were the key differentiators in this success story. The parts were of Liquidalloydedicated design, and any other metal material or processes were not able to get similar performances, even to shape the identical model with the same level of precision.

Going Ahead Into the Future

As the name PrometalTech comes from the company mission: Prometheus + Metal + Technology, “Like the giant Prometheus of Greek Myth delivering fire from heaven to humanity for civilization, PrometalTech will strive to bring the BMG material to the human life,” adds Dr. Atakan Peker, co-founder and Chief Technology Consultant. PrometalTech is at Dongguan City in Guangdong Province and the location is very convenient to reach to China-local and global electronics clients at their offices and primary manufacturing plants. PrometalTech’s process SCM structure is flexibly designed, and the manufacturing allocation and expansion can be timely and adequately available along with the customer’s manufacturing SCM plan in China. The company has recently established a production base and local R&D center at Shandong Province to meet a client’s project. “Forging ahead, PrometalTech will continue working for the right commercialization and industrialization of BMG material,” concludes Harold Lee, CEO and general manager of PrometalTech.