German Plasma Nitriding Specialist Celebrates 30 Years

With the German heat treat show HK26 in Cologne, October 13th-15th it would appear to be appropriate to have some German heat treat news, we start off with a German commercial heat treater which has caught our attention over the years, “Plasmanitriertechnik Dr. Böhm GmbH” of Chemnitz, Germany. In September 2026 the company celebrated its 30th anniversary, a milestone which gives us a good excuse to have a closer look at what has become one of the largest dedicated plasma nitriding operations in Germany.

The company was founded in 1996 by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Sabine Böhm, originally with a strong focus on plasma heat treatment, materials technology and research and development. Since 2012 the company has been headed by her son, Andreas Böhm, making this very much a second-generation, family-run heat treatment business.

Over the years the firm has steadily expanded its commercial heat-treating capacity and today operates no fewer than 15 plasma nitriding systems. For a company specializing primarily in plasma nitriding, plasma nitrocarburizing and oxidation, this is a very substantial installation base and puts Dr. Böhm amongst the larger plasma nitriding specialists in Germany.

The systems are available in a variety of sizes, allowing the company to process everything from smaller precision parts through to components weighing as much as 2 metric tons.

As most readers of “The Monty” will know, plasma or ion nitriding is particularly attractive for applications where high surface hardness, wear resistance and fatigue strength are required while keeping distortion to a minimum. Dr. Böhm processes components for industries including machine building, automotive, tooling, plastics processing, hydraulics and general mechanical engineering.

One thing which particularly caught our attention is the company’s very substantial in-house metallurgical laboratory. Commercial heat treaters specializing in nitriding live or die by their ability to consistently control case depth, hardness and compound layer formation, and Dr. Böhm appears to take this aspect very seriously.

The laboratory includes multiple hardness and microhardness testers, digital microscopy, metallographic cutting, grinding and polishing equipment and surface roughness measurement equipment. Capabilities include Vickers hardness testing, determination of nitriding hardness depth, metallographic examination and measurement of compound layer thickness. The company’s contract heat treatment and furnace engineering operations are certified according to ISO 9001.

There is another interesting twist to this company. Dr. Böhm is not simply a commercial heat treater. Based upon decades of practical process experience, the firm also designs and manufactures plasma nitriding systems, along with providing service, spare parts and technical support.

From our perspective, a family-owned company reaching 30 years in business is always worth mentioning, but what makes this story particularly interesting is the scale of the operation. With 15 plasma nitriding furnaces, an extensive metallurgical laboratory and three decades of specialized experience, “Plasmanitriertechnik Dr. Böhm” has quietly developed into one of Germany’s largest providers dedicated to plasma nitriding.

We would say that is a fairly impressive achievement for a specialist heat treater which started in Chemnitz back in 1996.

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