Anyone who follows or participates in the paint and coatings sector would be aware that its success is shaped by demands and progress on many fronts, whether it is internationally or locally, driven by services, innovation, technology or even corporate values that win business.
Lately we’re seeing more of the top paintmakers in Europe embrace and develop a lot of high-technology products and techniques that are giving them unique advantages that are instrumental in keeping them at the forefront of their respective segments. Many of these developments are the fruits of industrial cooperations with high-tech companies tangential to the coatings sector.
Hempel Strongly Targeting Innovation and Technology
A recent announcement that stood out for me within the industry was made by Hempel, saying that “the competitive landscape is moving at an increasingly faster rate in the paint and coatings industry.” This statement was used to explain its raison d’être for partnering with CVC Funds as a minor investor, which would give it a steroid-like corporate shot in the arm to enhance and build its stature even further within the coatings industry, so that it stands distinctively among its competitors in the future.
Staying with Hempel, the company’s recent announcement of a two-product system for the corrosion-under-insulation segment – a newer segment that has mushroomed its way to competitive prominence in recent years – fulfills a high-technology precedent that can operate at temperatures from -25°C to 177°C, is high-build, low thermal-conducting, non-flammable, seamless and offers a long coating lifetime.
And those aren’t the only signals from Hempel that it is seriously pursuing technology and innovation. It recently announced the appointment of a new chief technology officer, creating a brand-new position in the company’s group management that will helm its future innovation.
Testing Technology for Clean Energy
Clean energy remains at the forefront of the coating sector both in terms of power consumption and in terms of cultivating business in the clean energy sector.
Research into coatings for wind turbine blades is now well-established, but recently AkzoNobel in the UK enjoyed a world-first with the installation of a new turbine blade testing facility at Felling, the company’s flagship site for protective coatings research. The new purpose-built facility will accelerate the number of rain erosion tests that the company will be able to perform and offers a complete gamut of testing conditions, by being able to simulate the harshest of weather conditions from around the world.
When operating at its fastest, the company’s “helicopter test” for its blade finishing will reach speeds of 176 meters per second. Flow rates for water and temperatures for air will also be measurable and all the outcomes inevitably feed into the best analytics and databases etc. for future performance enhancement.
Renewable Technology for an Automotive Color
Another recent European coatings success story has its origins in BASF Coatings, which nowadays has a laser-like focus on the automotive sector.
One of its latest developments has been the Zenomenon color for an automotive coating. The unusual and award-winning achievement in this technology is that it eschews the classical automotive pigment option in favour of a combination of speciality polymer structures that incorporate a high concentration of renewable materials.
The specialty polymer structures result from a cooperation with the California-based Cypris Materials. The color is achieved through self-assembled layers that reflect light in the visible spectrum and with the well-known flop effect desired for automotive finishing. Furthermore, this technology is also suitable for future RADAR and LIDAR applications as transportation moves more fully toward the use of sensors.
Recent Coatings Applications of AI
One of the major ongoing trends within industry nowadays is that of digitalization and a very efficient part of that that companies are also beginning to embrace is that of artificial intelligence (AI).
AI holds considerable promise for the coatings sector when viewed through a variety of lenses, such as resin design, coatings performance, coating assessment, prediction and failure. Some European paintmakers have already enjoyed considerable achievements in working with AI.
The UK was one of the first countries to witness the intersection of AI and contemporary paint design, when last year HMG Paints launched its Nature’s Embrace collection, which was shaped by the dual powers of ChatGPT as an AI source, paired with the company’s own in-house color database – databases being fundamental to driving most corporate artificial intelligence applications.
Clearly one of the shrewdest uses of AI in this launch was the targeting of paint color names that were on-trend at that particular time. Of course, formulation when backed with computational technology and knowledge bases creates a streamlined development process that reduces waste and costs, enhancing environmental attractiveness at the same time.
More recently, another application of artificial intelligence was revealed when AkzoNobel announced that it had embarked on a partnership with coatingAI with a view to developing its Flightpath technology for the powder coating sector.
The Flightpath software has succeeded by pairing artificial intelligence with comprehensive technical insights from AkzoNobel in order to achieve more flawless powder finishing, taking into account spray gun motion and varying conditions of application while at the same time harnessing recommended settings that have their roots in artificially intelligent design.
I opened this article by paraphrasing a quote from Hempel and I’ll close it by mentioning one from AkzoNobel on its partnership with coatingAI: “Collaborating with a startup like coatingAI – [which is] pushing boundaries to transform the coatings industry – means we can accelerate our own powder revolution and provide services like no other.”
And that provides the measure of where the European industry is: powering ahead with every possible tool within its grasp in terms of distinction, innovation, technology and environmental performance.
