The main objective of nitriding is to increase the hardness of the component’s surface by enriching it with nitrogen. Of the three traditional methods Nitrex does not employ salt bath techniques due to their environmental and safety risks. Plasma nitriding is described later in this section and traditional gas nitriding is gradually being phased out thanks to the development of the Nitreg® family of processes.

General principles of the various nitriding methods and an explanation of potential-controlled techniques are described in more detail in an extension of this page, accessible by clicking here.

Nitreg® is a modern process, capable of meeting the metallurgical requirements of all nitriding specifications that may have been originally written for salt bath, plasma or traditional gas nitriding. The ability to control the concentration of nitrogen in the surface allows the user to control the growth of the compound layer virtually independently from developing a desirable diffusion zone. This approach facilitates not only meeting any specification requirements but it also makes it possible to improve on them by allowing tighter tolerances to be satisfied, particularly with regard to the thickness and properties of the compound layer.

Summary of Benefits:

• control of the thickness of the compound (white) layer and its properties
  

• elimination of closed nitride networks within the diffusion zone
  

• control of case depth
  

• control of surface hardness
  

• no distortion
  

• family of derivative and related processes.