Technical Ceramics Consultant: Advanced Structural and Electronic Ceramics Engineering

Expertise

• Over 35 years of experience in the development of medium to high temperature materials and processes.
• Tiles and coatings for opaque, translucent and transparent armor.
• Tubular heat exchangers for various applications such as miniature nuclear engines.
• Carbon fiber and SiC fiber/whisker reinforcement for C-C or C-ceramic composites, as well as other ceramic and metal matrices for molten metal (non-ferrous) processing, service and transfer.
• Ceramic cartridges and proppants for cracking the rocks at high depth and starting new oil and gas wells or resuscitating the exhausted oil wells.
• Specialty refractory ceramics, C-C and/or graphite for kiln/furnace furniture.
• Low pressure injection molding developments: technology and equipment, including the LPIM machines.
• Advanced technology in making complex geometry tubular ceramic structures both end open or one end closed for processing and service of hot corrosive and abrasive slurries and non-ferrous melt.
• Synthesis, processing, fabrication and utilization of high temperature advanced materials, ceramics and composites including nano-size ceramics, carbon nanotubes and fullerenes.
• Use of advanced ceramic components and composites as parts of industrial equipment for material handling, processing and transfer of hot, corrosive and abrasive fluids.
• Ceramic applications for aerospace and defense fields, oil fields and mining extraction and ore beneficiation, chemical and petroleum industry, pulp, paper and molten metal mills, foundries and plants.
• Educator: Advanced Ceramic Science and Engineering Materials; Powder Synthesis, Processing, Consolidation and Sintering; and Reaction Bonding of Ceramic Materials, (undergraduate and graduate classes).

Technology - Management

• Thermodynamic and kinetic assessments of reactions and engineered ceramics.
• Development and production of primed and ready compactable premixes.
• Compaction and shaping by single action or cold/hot isostatic pressing, injection molding, hot pressing, green machining and/or secondary grinding.
• Densification by sintering or reaction bonding.
• Analysis, testing and non-destructive evaluation and assessment of advanced ceramics and composites.
• Development of new high performance materials including synthesis, processing, consolidation and application of nano-size ceramics and composites.
• Non-oxides and their synthesis, processing and fabrication technology and equipment.
• Technical services: identifying problems and allocating proper resources; supporting technical, technological and quality control teams in charge with in such departments.
• Research and development engineering, manufacturing, fabrication and marketing, with focus on start-ups, new product development, technology implementation and low-to-medium production volume.
• Development and implementation of the dynamic manufacturing and research and development operating systems.
• Identification of projects priorities to significantly improve delivery, quality, cost and service in every aspect of company business.

Research and Development Engineering

• Advanced Ceramics and Materials: powders, feedstock, consolidated/fired parts and components.
• Powder synthesis: non-oxides, oxides: single, double, multi oxides; composites.
• Powder processing for ready-to-use or ready-to-press feedstock; Development, processing and fabrication of fine and ultra fine (including nano-size) materials.
• High expertise in the matter's surface characteristics with the ability to considerably manipulate the material surface features.
• Reaction Engineering; Catalysis and their mechanisms: homo- and/or hetero-catalysis; chemolysis; thermolysis; mechanolysis and combinations thereof.

Industrial

• Ceramic and composites synthesis and processing in powder form.
• Production of ready pressable premixes.
• Fabrication-compacting of various structures and geometries by single action pressing, cold, warm and hot isostatic pressing and low, medium and high pressure injection molding.
• Green machining of isostatically consolidated billets and slabs.
• Removal of temporary binders with no damage of the material composition and structure.
• Secondary grinding of bisque fired parts and components.
• Heat treatments for consolidation-densification including sintering, reaction-bonding and co-sintering.
• Dense grinding and finish of fired parts and components.

Manufacturing-Fabrication

• High temperature materials from concept-design through Lab development to pilot and fully blown production line.
• Medium and high tech engineered materials.

Process-Inspection-Quality Control

• Instrumental analysis: XRD, XRF, SEM, analytical chemistry, powder rheology
• Metallography, materialography and microstructural analysis.
• Complete Thermal Analysis; Dimensional micro and macro analysis, instrumental and calibration (comparators, radiography).
• Physical, mechanical, electrical testing and analysis including less known mechanical characteristics: Hoop strength; spin disk, micro-hardness and dynamic strength.

Experience

Undisclosed Company, Technical Expert and President, 2013 - Present

• Provide expertise in solid state chemistry, ceramics science and engineering, materials engineering, powder processing, process engineering, quality and continuous improvement, materials and components investigation and analysis, expert testimony, and related expertise to a wide variety of clients.
• Consultant for advanced ceramic, materials and process consulting firms.
• Professional chemist, ceramics and materials with 40 years' experience in academics, commercial, aerospace, oil and gas, electronics, structural ceramics and automotive-related industries.
• Hands-on consultant on various aspects of the chemistry, physics and manufacturing-fabrication of materials and their applications, both independently and with a private firm.

CerCo LLC, Shreve, OH, Senior Technical Director, 2007 - 2013

• Strategic technology, manufacturing and business development activities of oxide, nitride, oxy-nitride and carbide materials.
• Identified, and targeted new market segments and components for wear applications in harsh environments such as pulp and paper, and equipment to process, handle and transfer hot, corrosive and abrasive slurries and fluids. (non-oxide ceramic products), resulting in 28% increase in annualized sales revenues for armor and wear application products primarily for the U.S. and Far East markets.
• Management of multi-million research and development budget for development and implementation of new products all the way from lab to pilot and from pilot to fully blown production; carbide, silicon nitride, alumina and "SiAlON" military and armor grade ready pressable ceramic materials.

Materials & Electrochemical Research (MER) Corporation, Tucson, AZ, 2004 - 2007

Director Technologies, Principal Investigator

• Synthesis, processing and fabrication of advanced ceramics and composites for high tech applications: transparent fluorides, AlONs, spinels, SiAlONs, silicon nitrides and C-C and C-Ceramics.
• Ceramic gun barrel linings (ID smooth or rifled).
• Exotic powder metals from their oxides through a novel partial carbothermic reduction followed by hot electrolysis technology.
• Carbon-carbon, carbon-ceramic and ceramic-ceramic laminate composites, some by making in situ reinforcements, such as whiskers, fibers and/or carbon nano-tubes (CNT).
• PI and Director SBIR research proposals for contracts in excess of $3 million, annually spinel ceramics, some of them for translucent and/or transparent armor.

Penn United Carbides, Inc. (PUC), Saxonburg, PA, Chief Scientist, 2001 - 2003

• Tungsten carbide and silicon carbide mechanical seals and seal faces development for fluid processing and transfer industries producing $16 million in revenues (in the Oil & Gas Fields, Chemical Processing, Automotive, Non-ferrous Metals, Pulp & Paper industries).
• Low pressure injection molding technology to make tungsten carbide complex geometries. seals and seal faces for fluid processing and transfer industries.
• Development and fabrication of WC and SiC components toward a production of $25 million in revenues annually.
• Carbon-carbon composites, graphite foams and graphite solid furniture including setters, pins, retorts, etc. for processing of WC and SiC products.

CCS Ceramic Technologies - Benchmark Structural Ceramics, Buffalo, NY, 1988 - 2001

Vice President Engineering and Operations

• Developed, Manufactured and Fabricated silicon carbides and SiAlONs from the CCS technology of synthesis and processing, through advanced ceramic engineering, manufacturing, fabrication, to the marketing and sales of the company products.
• Spearheaded technology and engineering development, validation and commercialization from the lab technology to early stage Pilot and manufacturing start-ups.
• Planned, developed, built and managed research and development, production, operations, training, and testing/laboratory activities.
• Originated and developed Controlled Combustion Synthesis - CCS technology, including powder synthesis, processing and fabrication of parts and assemblies for thermal and chemical protection systems under high mechanical and friction stress load - effective molten metal ceramics and components for hot slurries handling, processing and transfer, including combustion engine and gas turbine components, and heat exchangers for combustion and nuclear engines.
• Developed and erected pilots for the manufacturing of carbides and SiAlONs: sintered, reaction-bonded, nitride-bonded: additionally Graphite, Carbon and C-C composites, carbon foams and graphite machining workshop of making reactors for combustion-synthesis technologies.
• Compacting and fabrication through SAP CIP and LPIM, green machining and bisque fired grinding and dense grinding of fully sintered products.

Honors & Publications

Credentials

• University of Cluj, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, Design and Management of Non-Destructive Tests and Analysis for High Performance Ceramic Components.
• Technical School of Building and Construction Materials, Bucharest, Romania, Colloidal and Interfacial Phenomena.

Certificates-License

• Shaft Seal Design & Applications Engineering, Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers
• Transient Regimes - Modeling and Finite Element Analysis, State University of New York at Buffalo
• Scanning Electron Microscopy, X-Ray Diffraction Analysis, Technion Institute of Technology
• Advanced Nitrogen Glass Melting Theory and Practice, Research Institute Ceramics & Silicates

Academic and Professional Affiliations

• American Ceramic Society
• The National Institute of Ceramic Engineers
• American Chemical Society
• American Association of Combustion Synthesis
• The New York Academy of Science

Publications and Patents

• Over 40 technical publications.
• Over 38 technical presentations to various conferences and symposiums in the U.S., Israel and Romania.
• 13 U.S. patents.

Education

• Ph.D. Science and Technology of Advanced Materials, Technion City, Haifa, Israel
• MBA Management and Industrial Accounting, Bucharest, Romania
• M.S. Quantum Chemistry, Open Ligands, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania
• B.S. Industrial Chemistry, Polytechnics University of Bucharest