Energy consumption and material fluxes in hard coating deposition processes

Hard coatings grown by physical vapor deposition (PVD) or chemical vapor deposition (CVD) on cutting tools are applied to considerably increase the tools' performance and lifetime. Besides differences in types, thicknesses, structures and properties of the coatings synthesized by PVD and CVD, the deposition processes differ significantly in their throughput of tools as well as their energy and material consumption. Within this work, a methodology to analyze the energy and material fluxes of typical PVD and CVD processes for the deposition of hard coatings on cutting tools is introduced. Three case studies are considered: (i) cathodic arc evaporation of TiCN, (ii) magnetron sputter deposition of TiN, and (iii) CVD of a TiCN/Al2O3 bilayer coating. The material fluxes and energy consumption for each process step of the respective deposition processes were monitored and are illustrated by individual Sankey diagrams. The visualization by Sankey diagrams allows to readily identify the main energy and mass consuming process steps. Finally, a normalization procedure enabling the comparison of different hard coating production routes is presented and discussed. •Energy and material fluxes of deposition processes for tool coatings analyzed•Case studies considered are arc evaporation, sputtering and chemical vapor deposition.•Sankey diagrams allow to identify the main energy and mass consuming process steps.•Normalization per coating thickness and tool allows to compare deposition processes.