United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority

Richard Stuart Nelson

James A Cairns

Stanley Frederick Pugh

Robert L Nelson

David S Rickerby

Joseph P Coad

Derek S Whitmell

Michael Joseph Holdoway

Michael John Smith

Rhydwyn William Barnfield

An apparatus for coating by sputter ion plating comprises a chamber having a gas inlet and outlet for passing gas under low pressure continuously therethrough; a cathode fabricated of coating material or precursor therefor positioned in the chamber; and means for generating a glow discharge within the chamber to sputter cathode material to form a coating thereof or of a product obtained therefrom on a substrate also positioned in the chamber. The cathode includes a plurality of projections (e.g. fins) extending from a surface, their disposition and geometry being such as to increase the effective ion current density in the chamber. In this way, high currents at low voltages and pressures may be achieved so that the apparatus can be used to coat a large substrate load, possibly at a higher coating rate.

Coating apparatus

A device for the treatment of fluids in which the fluid is caused to contact the device. The device is particularly useful in the field of catalysis. The device comprises a plurality of substantially parallel elongate helically wound coils of wire connected together by a connecting member to form a sheet of interconnected coils. In the case where the device is used for the treatment of the fluid by catalysis, the wire is made from, or coated with, a catalytically active material.

Fluid treatment devices

There is disclosed a method for the convenient storage of material, especially noxious or radioactive material, which method comprises entrapping the material within a solid by bombarding the solid with ions of the material so as to form a concentration of the material within the solid. Forms of apparatus for carrying out this method are also described.

Storage of material

In catalytic gas phase reactions there is used a catalyst comprising a sputtered deposit of catalytic material equivalent to between 0.5 and 5 monatomic layers upon a hard, substantially non-porous substrate. The substrate being hard and non-porous is of low surface area, that is not greater than 20 square meters per gram, and preferably comprises particles having a size in the range 0.1 micron to 0.5 centimeters.

Catalysts sputtered on substantially nonporous low surface area

An apparatus for purifying exhaust waste gases including a catalytic element comprising a substrate of metal carrying a surface layer compatible with and supporting a coating of catalytic material, a major proportion of the surface coating of catalytic material comprising an unagglomerated atomic dispersion. An example of such a substrate is an aluminum bearing ferritic steel which has been heat treated in air to form an essentially alumina surface layer.

Apparatus for purifying exhaust waste gases

A catalyst suitable, for example, for treatment of cat exhaust emissions is prepared by providing a substrate with a continuous adherent, surface layer of a carrier material for catalytic material by providing on the substrate a layer of carrier material, at least part of which comprises a gel, and firing; and sputtering catalytic material onto the surface layer by bombarding a source of the catalytic material in the neighbourhood of the surface layer with energetic ions, the conditions of atmosphere and selectivity of ions permitted to bombard the catalytic material being such that co-deposition upon the surface layer of unwanted material is avoided.

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Goring-On-Thames, United Kingdom

Richard Stuart Nelson