News & Events

HALVER, GERMANY - September 24th, 2024 - Successful participation of Märkisches Werk GmbH at the ZAK Career Fair in Lüdenscheid! 

Last week, we had the pleasure of attending the ZAK career fair in Lüdenscheid. It was a great opportunity to introduce our company and apprenticeship programs to many enthusiastic students. Our team had insightful conversations and provided a glimpse into the exciting career opportunities we offer. 

We’re looking forward to welcoming some of you to our team in the future! 
Thanks to everyone who stopped by!

HAMBURG, GERMANY - September 6th, 2024 - Today marks the end of an exciting week at SMM Hamburg and we are thankful for every customer, guest and friend that came by our (new) booth to talk with us. We can't remember a trade show with more engaging and substantive discussions than we've had this week.

There is no doubt that the MWH Team is leaving Hamburg today with renewed excitement and motivation to solve the valve train challenges of tomorrow, whatever and wherever they may be.

We're already looking forward to SMM 2026!

HALVER, GERMANY - September 15th, 2024 - SMM Hamburg is now less than three weeks away and we couldn't be more excited to welcome customers from around the world to our new booth.

Come by our Stand 405 in Hall A04 to meet our team of experts and discover our latest innovations, including:

✔ MW WR Superalloys for maximum valve & valve seat wear resistance
✔ MW NiClad to repair cylinder head cavitation damage
✔ Methanol-ready intake & exhaust valves & seat rings
✔ Cutting-edge reconditioning services to improve total cost of ownership

See you there!

HALVER, GERMANY - September 30th, 2024 - Based on field experience with methanol, extensive material compatibility tests and experience from almost 80 years of valve production, Märkisches Werk GmbH is proud to launch our 1st generation of valve spindles and seat rings for new builds and retrofits using up to 100% methanol injection.

We began this journey several years ago studying the boundary conditions within the combustion chamber. Methanol is a potent cleaning agent which means the typical wear-protective tribofilm formed on the valve seat by carbon-based fuels and lubrication oils is not present, resulting in rapid wearing metal-on-metal contact. That combined with combustion by products such as formic acid presents a unique compatibility challenge for valves and seat rings due to severe tribocorrision.

With that experience in mind, we began exhaustive material compatibility testing to understand the tribocorrision behavior of different base material and hardfacing combinations within the methanol environment. We found that, compared to leading commercially available hardfacing alloys, MW WR Superalloys exhibited the lowest wear values in every compatibility test performed to-date.

Our quest for perfection never stops, thus our 1st generation of valve spindles and seat rings for new builds and retrofits using up to 100% methanol injection is only the beginning. Our customers can be confident that we’re doing our homework so that their methanol engines equipped with these components are ready to do the hard work.

Contact our sales team to learn more!

HALVER, GERMANY - September 24th, 2024 -Märkisches Werk GmbH is proud to formally introduce our family of valve spindles and seat rings featuring our proprietary hardfacing alloys, now formally known as MW Wear Resistant (WR) Superalloys.

Almost a decade ago, MWH began developing bespoke, application-specific hardfacing alloys for high performance gas and ultra low-sulfur engine applications. Experience showed that many commercially available hardfacing alloys were simply not capable of meeting the industry's increasing performance and TBO requirements, so we decided to develop our own hardfacing alloys. In recent years, this work has expanded to include hydrogen, methanol and ammonia applications.

MW WR Superalloy products take a systematic approach to the valve & seat ring pairing that encompasses everything from raw material chemistry and grain size, CNC welding parameters, heat treatment, pre- and final-machining and, of course, perfectly matched tribological armoring of valve and seat ring. In our opinion, this philosophy is the only way to truly maximize engine performance, reduce downtime and extend the engine's useful life.

Until today, we have simply referred to MW WR Superalloys as "proprietary MWH hardfacing alloys". Many customers have in fact been operating their engines with valves and seat rings armored with different MW WR Superalloys for almost a decade. But with ever-increasing engine performance requirements, we felt it appropriate to give this increasingly important product line a proper name.

Contact our sales team for more information!

HALVER, GERMANY - June 18th, 2024 - Märkisches Werk GmbH has developed MW NiClad, a novel and sustainable process to repair and reconstruct cast iron cylinder heads damaged by cavitation that would otherwise have to be discarded.

The cylinder head repair process begins by machining off the portions of the cooling water sealing surfaces and seat ring pockets damaged from cavitation and then applying MW NiClad via cladding. The entire cylinder head undergoes a pre- and post-cladding thermal treatment to eliminate residual stresses before the final machining steps return the cylinder head to its original condition and dimensions. The time between overhauls (TBO) of a MW NiClad-treated cylinder head is equal to that of a new cylinder head, thereby extending its lifetime and reducing total cost of ownership.

Contact our sales team for more information!

HALVER, GERMANY - June 27th, 2024 - "People are the only sustainable competitive advantage of a company" and we celebrate that fact at Märkisches Werk. In June, we had the pleasure of hosting our summer party in Halver where we ate great food, played games and enjoyed the company of our colleagues, friends and family members.

Prost, Cheers, Santé, Cin cin, Salud, Skål, 乾杯, 건배, Kippis, 干杯, and Υγεία!

HALVER, GERMANY - 24 APRIL 2024 - Märkisches Werk was once again honored as "World Market Leader in South Westphalia"  by the SIHK. 

We are proud of our innovative products and services that we offer on the global market. Many thanks to our dedicated team and our valued customers for their continued support. We look forward to continuing to deliver excellence and contribute to the global market. 

In December 2023, Märkisches Werk was again classified as an "excellent training company" and thus meets the criteria for good vocational training of the seal of quality of the same name.

The award was given on the basis of the results of an anonymous survey of trainees in October 2023 and the company's current training figures.

The seal "Excellent training company" stands for:

• A high level of commitment on the part of the company in vocational training
• A high level of satisfaction among the trainees and
• A positive assessment of the training situation by the trainees

HALVER, GERMANY - February 28th, 2024 - After another long winter of development, manufacturing and testing, we are excited that the 2024 race season has finally begun. At MW Racing, we remain more committed and motivated than ever to provide leading-edge solutions that help our customers achieve the best possible engine performance.

To our all customers, we wish you great success this season and we are proud as always to supply some of the most critical components for your engines.

HALVER, GERMANY-  January 24th, 2024 - Märkisches Werk is proud to announce a substantial investment over the next 3 years that will expand the production capacity of our largest valve manufacturing plant in Halver, Germany! This strategic investment will allow us to reduce lead times and increase flexibility to meet growing customer demands, especially for the growing Future Fuels industry. This investment reflects our dedication to delivering exceptional products/services and remaining the global market leader in the manufacturing of cylinder head systems and components.

TECHNICAL BULLETIN

Sustainable chrome plating at Märkisches Werk GmbH replaces open bath process. High-end chrome plating facility is ready for production.

HALVER, GERMANY - December 11, 2023 - 

To our valued customers,

Continuous implementation of highly innovative processes is part of Märkisches Werk’s (MWH) sustainability philosophy. This enables us to improve digitalization and automation, which leads to robust production processes and ensures the highest quality products.

Surface treatment is one of the key production processes of high performance valve train components for less wear and highest corrosion protection. In particular, galvanic hard chrome plating is applied to a wide range of valve spindles for your most demanding applications.  Since 1976, our main valve plant in Halver has plated more than 10 million valves using an open bath electrochemical deposition process. 

However, conventional chromium plating facilities face increasing health and environmental impacts. Facilities with open baths using chromium trioxide (CrO₃) are known emitters of Cr(VI) into the environment. The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has formulated strict regulations in the REACH act, which rates CrO₃ as “substance of very high concern” (SVHC). In fact, the use of CrO₃ containing substances for hard chrome plating is only permitted for authorized users and, to gain authorization beyond 2024, MWH has been participating in the CTACSub2 consortium.

Aiming to provide best quality products at the lowest possible environmental impact, MWH has recently implemented a new chrome plating facility for production of large 4-stroke valve spindles (Figure 1). A smaller scale version of the same technology has been used in the production of valve spindles at our plant in Großbodungen for more than 10 years.

Both facilities are ready for the future:

• The unique and patented systems allow chrome plating without the accumulation of wastewater.
• The closed loop system for product cleaning and plating results in minimal atmospheric emissions.
• During the process, the chromic acid is drawn past the valve by creating a negative pressure. This has the advantage that the chrome liquid flow stops immediately in the event of a leak because the system draws air. In this way, the risk to employees and the impact on the environment is reduced to zero.
• Additionally, electrolyte usage is reduced significantly since each valve is plated in individual cells.
• The technology also allows for the substitution of Cr(VI) via non-toxic Cr(III) in the future, once this non-toxic compound is ready for commercial use.
• The process technology itself, an electrochemical deposition of chrome, remains the same to achieve less wear and highest corrosion protection.

The new facility will completely replace open bath chrome plating, which has been an industry standard since decades. This upgrade is a mandatory step on our path to a sustainable and REACH-conforming future of galvanic surface treatment. The open bath facility will be used for the final time in February 2024. Switching valves over to the new production facility may require minor dimensional adjustments to the chrome plating thickness and/or chrome run-out dimensions. Based on negative pressure applied, there will also be a relatively slight variation in visual appearance of the chrome plating.

For part-specific information, including chrome layer thickness and run-out, please refer to your corresponding MWH manufacturing drawing(s). In case of questions or need for consultation, please feel free to contact your corresponding MW sales manager. We very much appreciate your support during the implementation and thank you for helping to ensure the well-being of our employees and reduce the environmental impact of our business.