High Performance Bio-based Functional Coatings for Wood and Decorative Applications

Project Information

PERFECOAT

Grant agreement ID: 101022370

DOI

10.3030/101022370

Project closed

EC signature date 30 April 2021

Start date 1 May 2021

End date 30 September 2024

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine, maritime and inland water research, and the bioeconomy

Total cost

€ 6 250 541,25

EU contribution

€ 4 999 567,50

Coordinated by

SINTEF AS
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - PERFECOAT (High Performance Bio-based Functional Coatings for Wood and Decorative Applications)

Reporting period: 2023-12-01 to 2024-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The pursuit of a climate-neutral Europe and a truly circular economy requires attention to virtually all fields of production if fossil-based materials are to be eliminated. This relates not only to manufactured goods but also the paints and coatings used to protect them.
Of the almost 1 million tonnes of paints and coating produced in Europe each year, more than 80% are derived from fossil resources. Reducing the impact of these coatings would represent a major advance in Europe’s climate ambitions.

To address this challenge, the BBI/CBE-JU project PERFECOAT, funded under call identifier BBI2020.SO3.R5 set out to develop and validate a new generation of industrial wood and decorative coatings with more than 25% bio-based components.
The project thereby addressed three important markets for coatings, i.e. high-volume, UV-curable clear coatings, waterborne trim paints for DIY, and waterborne wall paints.

The overarching objective of the PERFECOAT project was to develop novel sustainable coatings that will ultimately be available to the public, with positive environmental, economic, and social implications, including reducing Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions, preparing the coatings market for new, more sustainable formulations, and contributing to creating future new job opportunities in the bio-based sector.
In addition to successfully addressing these objectives, the project also helped enhancing European leadership in the biotechnology sector and strengthen the EU’s leadership in adopting renewables.

Specifically, the PERFECOAT project has made significant progress towards offering new bio-based coating ingredients from climate neutral sources and processes that could help encourage the uptake of sustainable coatings, with a positive impact for the environment and help mitigating climate change.
Several new biobased ingredients were developed and tested, leading to successful demonstration especially in the field of new bio-based binders for UV-curable furniture coatings.

The PERFECOAT project was performed by a project consortium of 12 partners from 7 European countries, led by SINTEF, Norway.
The project started on May 1, 2021, with a project period of 41 months and estimated project costs of 6.25 million Euros, of which EU funding is 5.0 million Euros.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Within its totally 41 months lifetime, the PERFECOAT project has achieved most of its objectives and technological aims, i.e.:
• Scalable production of selected microbial polymers, lipids, and terpenes, as well as extraction of polymers from abundant biomass residues have been developed. Downstream processing regimes have been developed to derive relevant building blocks for their subsequent functionalization.
• The conversion of the base compounds into new binders for UV-curable coatings by means of bio-catalysis or chemical functionalization has been successful, revealing lead candidates that are directly taken further into follow-up projects and new initiatives to further optimise performance and applicability.
• The field of microbial fillers for the target applications of PERFECOAT has been systematically explored, even extending to the field of functional fillers that can provide added value for their use in paints and coatings.
• A wide range of microbially produced pigments ranging from red, orange to green and blue has been produced by applying advanced genetic engineering on different producer strains, and stability, compatibility, and scalability issue have been addressed.
• Functional nanomaterials based on Polyhedral Oligomeric Silsesquioxane (POSS) and microfibrillated cellulose have been shown to be able to contribute to property and performance improvements of new biobased paints and coatings.
• Feedback loops of synthesis, testing, and modification of compounds were implemented towards identifying and producing the most suitable paint ingredients, which then were successfully used in formulation and demonstration activities.
• Safety and sustainability assessments of the new ingredients and formulations developed in the project, including both environmental, economic, and social aspects, were an integral part of the project and its final conclusions.
• Visibility of the project and its activities, as well as efficient exploitation of its results was ensured by a communication, dissemination, and exploitation strategy that used multiple platforms to inform and involve all relevant stakeholder groups, leading to a large number of different types of publications.
• Active collaboration with other international research projects within the same topic and programme as PERFECOAT has helped maximizing the impact of the project.
Public outputs from the project are available on the PERFECOAT website at www.perfecoat-project.eu.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The PERFECOAT project went well beyond state-of-the-art with respect to the design and production of more sustainable, bio-based paint ingredients by involving advanced genetic engineering, bioprocess development, and chemical synthesis, and using underutilized feedstock for their production.
The platform being generated by the project through in parallel developing more sustainable paint ingredients of different classes, including binders, fillers, pigments, and functional compounds, has been unique, provided flexibility in application, and ensured progress beyond state-of-the-art on a broad basis within the field of bio-based paints and coatings.

By end of the project, the PERFECOAT project reached its main goal of demonstrating new paint and coating formulations with at least 25% bio-based content in the field of UV-curable furniture clear coatings, while valuable new insights have been gained for similar success within waterborne paints in the future.
Key results are directly ten further in CBE JU Innovation Action BIONEER and other new project initiatives applied for by the end of the PERFECOAT project.
Several promising ingredients were developed and some demonstrated in real paint formulations at TRL4/5 that could, and can in the future further, improve the bio-based content of paints and coatings for bulk applications, contributing to a quicker transition of the coatings market from still predominantly using fossil-based ingredients and formulations to more sustainable solutions, while preserving performances expected by customers.

As planned, the PERFECOAT project delivered a number of impacts that will contribute to the wider goals of the CBE-JU. These included:
• Creating a new cross-sectoral connection in the bioeconomy, linking the industrial biotechnology sector and the wood and decorative coatings sector.
• Establishing a value chain platform, integrating several value chains that deliver more sustainable ingredients for bio-based coatings. This brought together several economic sectors and bio-based economy actors –the biomass refinery sector, the chemical industry sector, the coating industry sector, the research and consultancy sector, and innovative biotechnology and nanotechnology companies.
• Demonstrating new consumer products based on bio-based chemicals, i.e. in the form of binder and additive materials as well as innovative bio-based coatings.
• Validating an improved processing technology reflecting a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) gain in various products. The technologies worked on in PERFECOAT moved from TRL 2-4 at the project‘s start to TRL 4-5 at its end.

PERFECOAT infographic