The knowledge platform will facilitate the coating industry to develop better and more environmentally benign products at attractive cost levels for a wide range of products, contributing to UN's sustainable development goals 9, 12, 13, and 14.
The understanding of adhesion mechanisms in coatings is very crude across both industry and academia despite the paramount role it plays to coating integrity. The core reason is that existing characterization methods are very rudimentary, which is limiting the ability to understand the relationship between chemical composition and physical properties of the coating. The TailAd project will develop new characterization methods utilizing advanced instrumentation that will provide the capabilities to study adhesion characteristics in much greater detail.
The project is an IPN project owned by Jotun AS, with SINTEF and NTNU the research partners. With the well-equipped labs at SINTEF and NTNU with broad characterization methods, the macroscopic surface, interface and mechanical properties of the coatings will be associated with the chemical formulations of paints, and a new knowledge platform covering the fundamental drivers for adhesion of coatings and the behaviour of active species on short and long-term adhesion will be developed.
This will enable the industry to shift from incremental, empirically based improvements to drastic performance enhancements based on the tailoring of underlying mechanisms in coatings. This knowledge platform on adhesion and migration will facilitate the coating industry to develop better and more environmentally benign products at attractive cost levels for a wide range of products, including anti-fouling, topcoats, and anticorrosion coatings.