Agriculture has always been a prime industry for every country. With the advancement in technology, many newer agricultural methods for plowing, seeding and harvesting have been introduced from time to time. From all the three, plowing is the foremost and essential step of farming which utilizes tractors, which consumes a lot of fuel and thus is also a source of environmental pollution.
Considering the environment issues, German researchers (German Fraunhofer Institute) have come up with DLC plows i.e. diamond like carbon coated plows. Here the edges of the plowheads are coated with diamond like carbon making them sharper. The DLC coating acts as a high stress bearing and protective coating for the plow. It makes the plow head much sharper and smoother to run through the soil. Because of this the load on the machine or tractor to which the plows are attached, is also reduced which reduces its fuel requirement.
Plowing also includes lots of wear and tear of the plow-heads which face friction from the soil and stones they run through and need to be replaced frequently. This problem has also been found a solution with DLC coating as this hard diamond like substance makes the surface not only smooth but resistant to wear and tear. The creators also believe that reducing friction reduces the power required by as much as 30 percent.
Via: Gizmag
