Sustainable, bio-based coatings for industrial applications
Of the nearly 1 million tonnes of paints and coatings produced in Europe every year, over 80 % are derived from fossil resources. Reducing the impact of these coatings would represent a major advance in Europe’s climate ambitions. Working to help make that happen has been the EU-funded PERFECOAT project. “Our goal has been to raise the bar on sustainable coatings and to do so without sacrificing quality,” says Alexander Wentzel, chief scientist at SINTEF, the project’s coordinating partner. The project also received support from the Bio-Based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU), a precursor to today’s Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking.
Delivering a range of bio-based coating solutions
To deliver on this goal, the project made strides towards developing and validating a new generation of bio-based industrial wood and decorative coatings. “Using a combination of industrial biotechnology, chemical synthesis and nanotechnology, we successfully developed a number of new, more sustainable solutions for the industrial coatings sector,” explains Wentzel. Amongst those solutions is a new carbohydrate-based, UV-curable binder concept for wood coatings. “Having over 25 % bio-based content, these coatings came close to fulfilling industrial performance standards in demonstration activities, which provides an excellent base for further development and improvement,” adds Wentzel. Another key outcome was the use of polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane and micro-fibrillated cellulose as functional additives in coatings. The project demonstrated how their use could improve the chemical resistance of coatings and serve as an efficient bio-based rheology modifier in waterborne paints.
From specialised coating applications to natural sources of pigmentation
The project also looked at using microbial cell mass as a potential replacement of conventional fillers. Here, researchers demonstrated the possibility of including new functionalities that could be relevant to specialised coating applications. Furthermore, researchers conducted strain engineering in unconventional yeasts and fungi as a potential natural source of pigments and other relevant compounds. This line of work led to new strains that overproduce defined lipids, terpenes, and an expanded spectrum of microbial pigments ranging from red to purple colour. Last but not least, researchers delivered a comprehensive safety and sustainability assessment package for new paint ingredients and formulations. These included in vitro safety assessment methods, as well as environmental and social life-cycle assessment, life-cycle costing, and end-of-life scenarios.
A clear path towards more sustainable coatings
Thanks to the excellent cooperation of the project’s 12 partners, PERFECOAT not only accomplished most of its highly ambitious goals, it also generated a large amount of exciting and relevant research data to build on. In fact, many of the project’s partners are already busy doing exactly that. For example, several partners are part of the EU-funded BIONEER project, which is further improving bio-based compounds for UV-curable coatings. The project also invested heavily in communicating its results. This includes both publishing a range of articles and organising workshops and webinars for industry, policymakers, students and the wider public – including one workshop co-hosted by the EU/BBI JU-funded CHAMPION project. “By combining different technologies and competences, PERFECOAT has created a clear path forward to achieving more sustainable coatings – a path that our industry and research partners are now further developing via a range of exciting new projects and collaborations,” concludes Wentzel.
Keywords
PERFECOAT, bio-based coatings, paint, coatings, Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking, Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking, biotechnology, nanotechnology, sustainable, BIONEER project, CHAMPION project
