Everyday R&D, uncommon results

Industrial yarn plays a crucial role in enhancing the performance and durability of cars and other vehicles. This specialized yarn, often made from materials like polyester or nylon, is utilized in various components such as seat belts, airbags, tires, and upholstery.

Yarn plays a crucial role in the creation of tights and various clothing items, contributing to their comfort, durability, and aesthetic appeal. Whether it's the cozy warmth of winter tights or the elegance of a finely knit sweater, yarn is the thread that weaves comfort and fashion together.

Yarns are also used for a wide range of filter applications. They provide specific functions such as absorbency, liquid repellency, resilience, stretch, softness, strength, microbial barrier,  sterility and etc. Perfect when you might need a bandage.

When you work on your computer. When you turn on a light. When you charge your phone. You use energy and Oerlikon helps energy companies to produce energy greener and in more efficient ways with our innovative coatings that make the turbines in different energy applications better.

From watches to lifestyle equipment, from vacuum cleaners to coffee machines — consumer goods need to be reliable, durable and attractive. Most household appliances, consumer goods and sports equipment use metal or plastic parts. Coating these parts with coatings from Oerlikon enhances and improves the performance and service life of modern consumer goods and keeps your watch on point.

Does the tooth hurt? Dental implants are the go-to solution for tooth replacement, delivering a natural look and feel. The process involves implant placement into your jawbone and attachment to a custom-made crown via an abutment. Elevating this process to new heights, Oerlikon produces advanced coatings and coating systems, ensuring top-quality and success for dental implants.

384,400 kilometers – a vast distance that separates our Earth from the enchanting Moon. It may sound impossibly far, but with innovations from Oerlikon's R&D team, you can reach from the Earth to the Moon. With our innovations one can create microfilament yarn that is spun on bobbins. If you take one of these 15-kilogram bobbins and unwind it, the amount of yarn on this humble spool, will allow you to forge a connection, stretching from Earth to the Moon itself.

Inter-Company research have resulted in the development of a composite that when formed into a 50 mm x 25 mm bar, will hold the weight of 3 elephants! Combining this strength and exceptional wear resistance has translated into the performance of tools that can drill over 6 km and survive erosive environments over a week’s arduous service. The condition of the tool after use was such that it could be used again!

If you compare human hair, independent of its color, the size of a microfilament yarn is just a fraction of the size of the hair. Today’s microfilament yarn that is produced by innovations from Oerlikon's R&D team, has a size of approximately 6 nanometers. If one compares that with human hair or sheep wool that respectively are 50-70 and 30-80 micrometers, it is easy to say that we can impress with almost nothing.

Step into the fascinating world of bionics, where innovations from Oerlikon's R&D team can create coatings that seamlessly emulate nature's extraordinary precision. This is akin to the wispy delicacy of a bird's feather, measuring 0.001mm, the intricate detail of a butterfly's wing at 0.01mm, and even the formidable armor of a male Caucasus beetle, substantial at 0.1mm. In this realm, precision knows no bounds, and innovation merges seamlessly with the wonders of the natural world.