Spring, and especially the late spring, has been a fairly quiet time for the coatings industry and its suppliers. Consolidation appears to be on the back-burner for now, despite being at the forefront of many globalization strategies, and announcements on innovation and raw materials are sputtering, probably the consequence of industry shutdowns and other pandemic effects holding up the R&D pipeline.

In Europe, the last major industry deal in the mega-merger class was the takeover of Cromology by Nippon Paint Holdings, which will have ramifications mainly in the French and Italian decorative paint markets.

PPG Investing Heavily in Italy

Interesting then, that PPG’s spring of 2022 was heavy on announcements that also focused on these two countries. In May, the company announced the opening of a new architectural paint and coatings color automation laboratory in Milan, Italy. The $2.1 million (€2 million) facility will significantly increase the speed of developing paint color formulations.

The facility will provide up to 100,000 paint color matches annually, providing master paint color formulations for new colors and existing colors when they are reformulated. The laboratory’s automated system dispenses colorants and base paint samples, mixes them, applies them and measures them, without manual input.

“The new paint color automation laboratory will further strengthen our leadership in color and reflects our goal of providing innovative solutions to address our customers’ needs,” said Rita Di Leo, PPG color application engineering manager, Milan. “It allows an increased number of products, improved paint color accuracy and faster time to market for new color collections.”

The Milan facility is a European hub for PPG product development and a global center of excellence for color hosting laboratories for paints and coatings for the automotive refinish, architectural, packaging and industrial markets. This includes two color matching automation lines for automotive refinish paints and coatings, and a new research and development facility for powder coatings.

Also in Milan and earlier in the spring, PPG opened its new European Central Powder Coatings Research and Development (R&D) Center. The facility’s expanded capabilities, will enhance and accelerate powder coatings product development.

The R&D center will focus on innovating powder coatings product development, demonstrating advanced powder technologies and providing best-in-class customer and technical support. The Milan facility is a European hub for cross-technology research and development.

“The new powder coatings R&D center boasts a critical mass of capabilities that will significantly strengthen our product development and application efforts,” said Olivier Magnin, PPG technical director, industrial coatings, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). “We also can leverage competencies at the site, including our corporate color group, our global center of excellence for waterborne coatings, and our state-of-the-art analytical and weathering lab, as One PPG.”

“The investment in our Milan facility demonstrates our long-term commitment to delivering novel powder coatings technologies to exceed our customers’ expectations,” said Anne Banuls, PPG powder business manager, industrial coatings, EMEA. “The customer application center will include a design and color showroom where we can really inspire our customers and help us further accelerate growth in our powder coatings business.”

The investment follows up on two other key points for PPG’s European powder coatings activities: the acquisition of Arsonsisi’s powder coatings business and its manufacturing plant in Verbania earlier this year, and the takeover of all of the Karl Wörwag business, which was a major industrial coatings producer that participates in powder coatings as well.

Further still, PPG recently started a high-efficiency power-generation facility at Quattordio, Italy, where it has an automotive paint and coatings manufacturing site. The facility is expected to reduce energy costs by 13% and carbon dioxide emissions by 10% annually.

Combining cooling, heating and power, which is known as trigeneration, the facility can operate on a combination of natural gas and 5% hydrogen. This can be increased to 20% hydrogen with minimal investment and up to 60% with further modifications. The new power plant will operate with an overall estimated efficiency of approximately 75%.

The US$2.8 million (€2.7 million) project is part of a partnership between PPG and Grastim, a developer of high-efficiency energy-generation solutions that include trigeneration and co-generation. PPG previously completed a US$2.1 million (€2 million) project using Grastim’s co-generation technology at its Caivano, Italy, site in 2021.

Under the power purchasing agreement, Grastim is responsible for the financing, authorization, construction and operation of the two power-generation plants and will operate them for seven years.

“With the skyrocketing cost of energy, it is essential to draw on any resource to reduce production costs and make plants more efficient,” said Baldo Pavolini, Grastim technical director. “The use of high-efficiency energy production solutions provides not only an economic benefit for our customers but also a sustainability advantage.”

PPG invests in France

In yet another investment in Europe, PPG has invested $17 million into building an aerospace application support center (ASC) in Toulouse, France. The company anticipates breaking ground for the new facility in the third quarter of 2022 and the beginning of operations in the fourth quarter of 2023. The facility will be strategically located near aerospace customers and the Toulouse Blagnac Airport.

This will be the fifth PPG ASC in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region and the second in France, in addition to the one in Gonfreville.

“The construction of a new ASC will allow us to better serve and collaborate with our aerospace customers in the region,” said Dirk Thelen, PPG general manager, aerospace, EMEA. “The new facility will enhance our ability to provide unparalleled responsiveness and customer support, leading to faster qualification of products and higher participation in new projects, earlier in the development cycle.”

Capabilities at the ASC will include a development and qualification laboratory for aerospace materials, a color blending area for coatings, and a spray booth for hands-on training. It will also house filling lines for touch-up kits, a transparencies inspection cell, customized packaging capabilities for third-party products, chemical management resources and a customer service center.

“ASC-Toulouse will be the 17th application support center in our worldwide network,” Thelen said. “As we continue to grow our reach globally, we can ensure that all of our customers have convenient access to our latest aerospace technologies, while also improving the delivery of our products and providing technical resources regionally.”