Coatings
Due to an environmentally-friendly trend within industry and tougher environmental legislations, the R&D focus in the coatings field during the last decade has been on replacing coatings based on organic solvents with water borne systems. YKI has been very active in this development. Both formulation, and film formation, of water-based systems have been important parts of the research activities within coatings.
This field of research is still important for YKI. However, there is today a new trend towards introducing new functionalities in coatings, and this is now an expanding part of the coatings research at YKI. Thus, YKI has identified the following areas to be of strategic important for the coatings area:
- Anti(bio)fouling
- Reduced dirt pick-up
- Reduced staining
- Improved scratch resistance
- Anti-corrosion
- Improved UV protection
A wide resource
The SP group has coating activities in several parts of the group including SP Chemistry and Materials Technology, SP Trätek and YKI. These parts have very complementary approaches in coatings research including weathering, test fields, testing, moisture dynamics, film formation, surface modification, microbiological testing etc. The different units joined forces during 2006 creating the Scandinavian Coatings Center (SCC) offering solutions and ideas for the coatings industry. The centre can help the industry in areas such as off-shore, protective/anticorrosive coatings, wood coatings and paints for concrete. The centre is world-class in the following areas of competences: surface analysis, formulation, film formation, ageing and durability, surface modification, water migration in wood, service life prediction and depth profile analysis.