Project description
Innovative powder coatings slash energy and environmental costs and enhance performance
Coatings are widely used to enhance the lifetime and performance of many products. Many coating technologies rely on the application of liquid materials, but worldwide demand for powder coatings is increasing due to their excellent durability and finish, easy application and lower environmental impact. However, promising thermosetting coatings require considerable time in large, energy-consuming ovens at substantial costs to manufacturers and the environment. The Italian SME Pulverit has a solution that could enable tremendous energy savings – between 40 % and 70 % compared to current approaches – while enhancing performance. The EU-funded PULVERCOAT project is helping the company optimise the technology and prepare the path to market.
Objective
Worldwide demand for powder coatings has increased over the last few decades based on their excellent durability and finish, easy application and low environmental impact. Thermosetting powder coatings cure between 180ºC-200ºC and need beyond 20 minutes curing depending on the resin and cross linker used. Its application takes place in big ovens (2x7m2) and the energy consumed during the curing process represents nowadays 50% of the total operational costs of the applicators, which are either coating enterprises or directly product manufacturers (OEMs). A major challenge for powder coating manufacturers is therefore to offer their customers more energy-efficient products by reducing the polymerization temperature and increasing the speed of the reaction. PulverCoat is a new generation of advanced thermosetting powder coatings that polymerize at lower temperature (110ºC-130°C) with a reaction mechanism 10 times faster than common powder coatings, enabling curing to take place in just 3-5 minutes. The use of PulverCoat will therefore significantly improve the energetic yield of the application process, representing a total energy saving between 40 – 70% depending on the dimension of the painted part and, consequently, reducing the financial and environmental impact of this operation. Furthermore, this low curing temperature range enables its use for coating heat sensitive substrates, like wood and plastic. Moreover, our new generation of advanced powder coatings has shown additional advantages, such as improved, outstanding resistance to UV radiation (50% better than common polyesters), and excellent anti-graffiti properties thanks to its dense net of amino bonds grants. The PULVERCOAT project is expected have a significant impact on our company, PUVERIT: forecasted sales in 2025 will render revenues of €45.9 million, and a total of 90 new jobs will be created in the first five years of commercialization.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- natural scienceschemical sciencespolymer sciences
- natural scienceschemical sciencesinorganic chemistrypost-transition metals
- engineering and technologymaterials engineeringcoating and films
- engineering and technologychemical engineeringchemical process engineering
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Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-2 - SME instrument phase 2Coordinator
20157 MILANO
Italy
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.