Member - coatmaster

Industrial coatings are a multi-billion Euro business including paint and powder coating in automotive and architectural industries as well as thermal spraying in energy and aircraft industries. Annually roughly 20 million tons coating material is processed [11] corresponding to 38 million kg of crude oil or 130 million tons of CO2Around 30% [4, 13] of this coating-material is wasted due to over-coating because a suitable process control is unavailable for the vast majority of coating-processes. At the same time raw materials like crude oil or titanium dioxide component of most coating materials are running short. In the period of 2010-2012 [14] the market price of titanium dioxide doubled, and the worldwide demand is steadily increasing. Likewise, critical and cost intensive is the lack of integrated process and quality control to detect deficient products directly after fabrication. Increasing environmental and ecological awareness combined with rising cost of raw materials is moving process-integrated control into the focus of decision makers. The industry demands for a non-contact measurement system to measure the coating thickness early in the process. For different applications and use the measurement system should be • easy to use and handheld to avoid additional costs for process integration • the integration of the measurement system into coating lines and production processes should be easy and cost effective We have developed the coatmaster technology, an award-winning and world-wide patent protected technology, which enables a coating thickness measurement early in the process. The measurement process is non-contact and non-destructive, and therefore applicable on wet, powder and cured coatings, independent of the coating material and color. Furthermore, substrates from metal, wood, plastic and rubber are possible. We have already integrated coatmaster measurement systems into highly automated coating lines in industrial environments with more than 100 customers and achieved revenues in excess of 1.8 Mio CHF in 2017. However, integrated systems are not affordable for many industrial players and not appropriate for every industrial application. Therefore, we invented an innovative technology that is the base for a handheld thickness measurement gauge which we will bring to market in 2018. This handheld system enables measuring the coating thickness early in the process without further costs for integration. It is the perfect solution for the most relevant coating industrial and non-industrial applications. It brings the following benefits: • Reducing pollution by 20 million tons CO2 • Saving raw-materials (crude-oil, TiO2) • 100% quality control and optimization • increasing production speed • decreasing cost for production