🪄 That very aluminum oxide seal—our first product for a major customer

Every startup has a project where purely scientific interest first evolves into something more applied. For our company, that was a request from Gazprom Neft PJSC a couple of years ago: to reverse-engineer a seal for aggressive environments ⚙️

What was wrong with the standard unit:
— the metal counterpart in an abrasive environment failed within 3 months;
— replacing the seal = equipment shutdown, downtime, losses;
— these products were only supplied in assembled units, with lead times of 4-6 months.

We then printed a ring from aluminum oxide (Al2O3) on a prototype of our printer. The suspension was the first version of our paste.

Why ceramics find their application in the oil and gas sector:
🔹 Al2O3 hardness — 9 on the Mohs scale (hardened steel ~6.5). Wear in a friction pair is significantly lower.
🔹 Chemically inert: not afraid of acids, alkalis, hydrogen sulfide, formation water.
🔹 Operating temperature — up to 1500 °C, thermal expansion 2 times lower than steel.
🔹 Does not stick, does not rust, is not "eaten" by abrasives in the flow.

What this gives the customer in practice 💡
✅ Unit life increases significantly — fewer maintenance stops;
✅ Geometry is repeated part to part — on a specific part we hit 150 microns the first time;
✅ Lead times are reduced — weeks, not months: no tooling for casting or pressing needed;
✅ Any batch size is possible — from 1 piece for testing to a series.

For us, a project with such a large company was the most important confirmation of the demand for the technology for which we began to develop the commercial direction of ceramic 3D printing, gradually forming the entire process contour on our own raw materials and equipment 🚀



📩 Have a similar part that your company is tired of replacing every season? Send a drawing or photo — we'll calculate what can be made from ceramics.

👉 proceramika.ru | info@proceramika.ru | 8-800-201-0663
📍 Moscow, Skolkovo, Bolshoy Blvd. 30 s1

—
📱 Telegram: @proceramika 📱 MAX: id9701272143_biz
—

#proceramika #3dprinting #ceramics #al2o3 #oilandgas #importsubstitution #additivetechnologies #reverseengineering