Boronizing protects metals against wear

Boronizing is a thermochemical surface treatment that involves diffusion of boron into a base metal at a high temperature. The resulting metallic boride provides high hardness and resistance to acid corrosion, and lengthens service life by a factor of three to ten. Boronizing fills a gap between conventional surface treatments and the more exotic chemical and physical vapor deposition. In a number of applications, boronizing has replaced such processes as carburizing, nitriding, and nitrocarburizing. It has even replaced hard chrome plating in some cases, while achieving similar service life improvements. Boron can be uniformly applied to irregular surfaces, and can be applied to specific areas of a surface. It is also suitable for high-volume production applications, as first demonstrated in the European automotive industry. This article describes the boronizing process, provides material selection/preparation criteria, and lists industrial applications.