_ Finishing processes
Precision finishing
More and more demanding quality standards on the market are dramatically increasing the importance of precision surface finishing processes. These treatments improve the aesthetic appearance of metal parts, but also their mechanical and physical characteristics, corrosion resistance and lifespan, among others.

Smoothing
Processes related to smoothing metal surface allow to achieve uniformity of product for appearance’s sake, and to be safe for touching without being scratched to shreds by unfinished roughness. For moving parts, a smooth finish cuts down on friction loss, without getting into coatings.

Mirror finishing
A mirror finish is a highly-polished finish, characterized by a bright, shiny, reflective metal surface. A high-quality mirror finish is not only visually appealing, but the gradual removal of surface scratches reduces indentations or grooves on metal, which may contain contaminants, such as dirt or bacteria.

Deburring
Deburring is a material modification process that increases the final quality of the product by removing impurities with a negative impact the on the appearance of a smooth machined surface, like sharp edges or burrs, left by bending, cutting, piercing, shearing and compressing materials.

Rounding
Rounding cutting edges is crucial for the design and geometry of cutting tools in metal machining. Cutting edge geometry determines the thermo-mechanical stresses on the tool. By employing edge preparation, tool life, cutting performance, and the quality of the machined surface can be improved.

Corrosion resistance

AM Post-processing
Surface roughness of AM parts can vary depending on the technology used and parameters applied, and affects fatigue, corrosion resistance and friction properties. In order to improve the surface quality, electropolishing is postulated as the most promising the treatment to reduce roughness and defects.

Inner channels
Surface quality requirements of internal surfaces, inner channels and complex parts with blind holes have increased during the last years specially in case of injection molding, aerospace, automotive, medical, food and pharma, semiconductors and gas and fluid flow applications.

_ Industries
Aerospace
Surface finishing operations play an extremely important role in aerospace and energy sectors, since it helps to improve efficiency, while increasing reliability and durability. These parts must withstand high stress corrosive conditions, high loads with long-term lifespan and meeting demanding cycle life specifications.

Automotive
Surface finishing solutions are utilized at every level of the automotive pipeline, from garage maintenance and car restoration to manufacturers’ demands. One of the most challenging aspects has to do with safety, since the result of the surface finishing process is closely linked to the vehicle performance and reliability.

Dentistry
Dental laboratories use dry electropolishing to improve surface quality of cobalt-chrome and titanium dental parts. Smoothing, cleaning and eliminating small imperfections from removal dental prosthetics and other implanted dental parts expands their lifespan pieces and can extend the life of dental components from the inside out.

Food & Pharma
Metal components produced for food, beverages, packaging and pharma industries must comply with challenging surface finishing standards. Those surfaces should be ultra-smooth, precision finishing, thus avoiding areas for bacteria grow. DLyte achieves superior results than any other surface finishing method.

Jewelry & Fashion
These industries require a perfect surface quality as the purpose of the piece is mainly aesthetic and its value depends on a good looking. Complex geometries in jewels are hard to polish with traditional polishing methods and electropolishing is one of the techniques utilized for a better homogeneity and standardization.

Medical device
Cleanability, biocompatibility, corrosion resistance, pathogen resistance and a smooth surface without defects are crucial to comply with the function and demand on quality of the medical industries. Improving the surface’s quality on implants, instruments and equipment components increases functionalities as well as their lifespan.

Toolmaking
Overcoming the drawbacks of tool finishing is one of the main challenges in the field of surface finishing solutions, in order to achieve the lowest roughness on flat surfaces. This is why DLyte has specially created new electropolishing technologies to carry out the most challenging freeform surfaces polishing.

_ Technologies
Immersion
DryLyte is a patented technology for grinding and polishing metals by ion transport using free solid bodies. It works by combining the electrical flow created by high-precision rectifier. This results in an ion exchange, removing material from the peaks of roughness.
Projection
Our new Electro-Blasting technology, released in 2021, is a new solution that provides a stream of solid-electrolyte particles propelled by a non-conductive liquid media to improve the surface quality. The media is projected towards a localized area of the piece.
_ Industrial solutions
_ Dental solutions
Desktop series
Accessible to small laboratories, workshops, workrooms and SMEs needing a cost-effective solution for metal surface finishing processes. From grinding to mirror finishing, this new set-up offers a new easy way to process any casting, sintering or milling metal parts.

Compact series
An efficient range of solutions to meet the requirements of dental, medical and industrial sectors, depending on finishing needs, production quantities or part dimensions. Ensures high scalability and performance. A solution for the most common metals and alloys.

PRO500 series
The most advanced, powerful and versatile surface-finishing machine for mass production on the market. It performs high-quality metal surface-finishing better, faster and more efficiently with processing times ten times better than current technologies.

DLyte 10,000
The most powerful modular unit for polishing large, heavy and complex pieces to be totally integrated in any production line. The robot module allows to treat metals and alloys in a fast, and cost-efficient way. It counts with a precise 6-axis mechanical movement.

DLyte eBlast
Projected dry electropolishing for focused surface finishing in complex geometries and heavy or large parts. It provides a stream of solid-electrolyte particles propelled by a non-conductive liquid media to achieve the best surface quality results of metal parts.

Dental series
An efficient range of solutions to meet the requirements of dental sectors, depending on finishing needs, production quantities or part dimensions. Ensures high scalability and performance. A solution for the most common metals and alloys.

DLyte Mini
It is perfect for low production volumes or as a complementary device to existing DLyte equipment. It can be used as a secondary, quick-step process to achieve a superior shine.

Consumables
A perfect surface requires the right combination of DLyte machine, DLyte electrolyte media and finishing process parameters. We have a wide range of DLyte electrolyte media to ensure your workpieces look exactly how you want after processing.

Services
DLyte offers a comprehensive solution combining knowledge, tools, programming, and support to integrate DLyte into your production chain seamlessly. We are dedicated to delivering customized experiences and ensuring your success with DLyte.

_ Comms
News
Find out more about our corporate news, the latest commercial developments and upcoming events. From the main international trade shows to the most innovative launches, we invite you to learn more about GPAINNOVA’s brand DLyte. Stay tuned for all the projects in which we are involved!

Exhibitions
Our aim is to be as close as possible to our customers. This is why GPAINNOVA attends every year more than 40 international trade shows dedicated to the dental, healthcare, and industrial sector, including key events such as Formnext or EMO Milano. Check all our upcoming events here!

Webinars
Innovation is in our DNA. Our business group is continuously investing and focusing on getting better to meet the real needs and demands of the industry, which are increasingly changing. Do not miss them out! Learn more about our newest technological developments: machines, fixturing, electrolyte and much more.

Media
Would you like to see how our machines and our disruptive DryLyte Technology work? Do you want to know how they can help you automate your surface finishing processes and make them more cost-efficient and environmentally-friendly? Take a look at our video gallery and find out more about our machinery!

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History
Created to overcome these challenges, DryLyte is the basis of DLyte, a technological system that automates, simplifies, and standardizes the post-processing of metal parts. It provides a high-performance solution for the most demanding metals and alloys in the industry.

Awards
GPAINNOVA is a technological platform based on the design and implementation of multidisciplinary innovative projects. Multiple brands within the group have received prestigious national and international awards and recognitions within a short period of time since GPAINNOVA was founded.

Schedule a visit
Our technology knows no borders. Neither does our team! Our DLyte on Tour regularly visits companies across Europe for free, to showcase at home our most advanced solutions for surface finishing in metal parts. Are you interested in an in-house demo at no cost?

As advanced last month, two scientific articles about tungsten carbides have just been published by Elsevier-Procedia CIRP (ISSN 2212-8271). Both are related to significant advances in surface finishing for cemented carbides, also known as hard metal (WC-Co), by means of DryLyte, a dry electropolishing technology created and patented by the above-mentioned business group. In 2021, the process was perfected for this kind of metals. This new electrolyte and the process itself was patented by Marc Sarsanedas, Guiomar Riu and Joan Josep Roa.
The studies confirm that DryLyte removes roughness of WC-Co substantially without a leaching effect of the metallic cobalt (Co) binder.
These scientific papers have to do with surface integrity at the submicrometric length scale after being polished with DryLyte for WC-Co. Both researches were carried out by GPAINNOVA, the Department of Materials Science and Engineering of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) and the KLA Group.
Figure 1. Cross-section micrograph showing no leaching effect (left hand side) and FESEM micrograph of WC-CO grade (right hand side) after being polished using the DryLyte® Technology for 30 minutes.
Preserving integrity in cemented carbides
The first article, entitled “Surface integrity of new dry-electropolishing technology on WC-Co cemented carbides”, is focused on WC-Co dry electropolishing, a metal finishing solution that allows to obtain corrosion-free surfaces with a roughness bellow 9 nm. After investigating the surface integrity —trying to correlate the remanent microstructure after different dry-electropolishing times—, the researchers observed a close correlation between the residual microstructure and the surface integrity in terms of hardness and elastic modulus maps.
Among its main conclusions, the paper highlights that the DryLyte Technology allows to polish WC-Co, reducing roughness and removing post-processing defects such as pulverized WC grains or smeared Co phase. The article also concludes that treated pieces do not present leaching effect of the metallic Co binder, and proves that nanoindentation tests show a clear correlation between microstructure and mechanical properties.
In 2021 a new process based on dry electropolishing was developed for hard metal. The patent pending process is part of the DryLyte® Technology and supposes the solution to leaching of cobalt binder and other side effects of the technology
DOWNLOAD THE PAPER
Surface integrity of new dry-electropolishing technology on WC-Co cemented carbides.pdf
Behaviour of WC particles in terms of hardness
Concerning the second article, “Small-scale mechanical response at intermediate/high temperature of 3D printed WC-Co”, this work is also related to dry electropolishing in WC-Co. It consists in a nanomechanical study of a 3D printed WC-Co. During the research, a nanoindentation technique was implemented to analyze the main deformation and damage mechanisms at different temperatures, from room up to 600 ºC.
The paper stresses that hardness is a temperature-dependent property. On the other hand, researches also WC particles present an anisotropic behavior —that is, a property of a material which allows it to change or assume different properties in different directions— in terms of hardness for temperatures below 500 ºC.
DOWNLOAD THE PAPER
Small-scale mechanical response at intermediate-high temperature of 3D printed WC-Co.pdf
For further information about electropolishing in cemented metals, please contact GPAINNOVA’s team at info@gpainnova.com.