From a decade, there have been remarkable advancements in the engineering materials and its processing. Quartz and Borosilicate glasses belong to such advanced non-conductive materials that possess unique properties such as biocompatibility and transparency. Due to its brittleness and hardness, it becomes challenging to process through available conventional machining processes. Its chemical inertness, electrical and thermal conductivities hinder its processing through ECM and EDM. However, the use of dry plasma and deep wet hydrofluoric acid etching methods results in a low machining rate and many health issues. Also, abrasive jet, water jet, ultrasonic, laser, and ion beam technique produces a low surface finish, taper, high tool wear, and thermal damage. Despite these limitations, there is research data available on the non-conventional process electrochemical discharge machining used to produce features on Sodalime glass and Borosilicate glass but lack of literature on Quartz glass, which is well known for its hardness. Machining of holes would widen its application in the fields of MEMS devices such as inlet/outlet hole, cavities for electrical interconnection, channels for microfluidic applications, and also for the production of texture surfaces for numerous applications. Production of high aspect ratio micro holes can drastically increase its demand in the field of biomedical devices and as heat sinks. The literature reveals the µ-ECDM process is used in the synthesis of metallic nanoparticles like Titanium, Nickel, Copper, Platinum, Silver, and Gold, etc. But there is a lack of research data on generation of nonconducting nanoparticles. The second seminar details the fabrication of a µ-ECDM experimental setup used to machine quart glass and generation of nonconducting nanoparticles. The main feature of the µ-ECDM setup is the DC motor actuated gear reduction mechanism to achieve a tool feed of 0.04 mm/min and also has a provision for tool rotational.
The design of the experiment was used to conduct experiments to machine micro-holes on quartz glass. The setup is also used for the generation of nonconducting borosilicate nanoparticles. These borosilicate nanoparticles widen its application in the field MEMS as insulators, chemical environments as catalysis, and in microfluidic systems as support for surface-based chemical reactions due to the availability of its large area per unit volume. Signal-to-Noise ratio is utilized to optimize the parameters- to maximize Material Removal Rate (MRR) minimize Tool Wear Rate (TWR), reduce Diametrical Over Cut (DOC), minimize Taper Angle (TA) and minimize Particle Average Diameter (AD). Response Surface Modelling (RSM) is used to develop a predictive model and to study the interaction effect of parameters on the various responses.