Corrosion can lead to financial losses in addition to having a negative effect on public health and safety. This is why its control is imperative economically, environmentally as well as aesthetically. Adding to this field, the EU-funded COAT4LIFE project aims to develop eco-friendly multifunctional coatings that have the ability to detect and protect from corrosion based on different mechanisms that combine nanostructured inhibiting and sensing additives. The work of the project will contribute towards a circular economy by increasing the durability of materials as well as implementing greener solutions.

Objective

The need to develop and use products made out of residues or sub-products from industry is creating pressure over fields where more traditional, linear economy concepts prevail. In this project we address one important stage of the life cycle of products, particularly trying to extend its service life, thereby contributing for advances towards circular economy via increase in durability of materials and use of greener materials. In particular, this proposal addresses the problem of protection and monitoring of corrosion of metallic substrates used in different applications. Structured in previous experience with a recently finished MSCA-RISE project SMARCOAT (ref. 645662, 2015-2018), this project aims at developing eco-friendly multifunctional coatings with capacity to protect and detect corrosion based on different mechanisms combining nanostructured inhibiting and sensing additives. Two types of coating systems are intended to be developed, one for temporary protection during storage and transportation based on biodegradable materials and another on thermosetting polymers obtained using raw materials from sustainable sources. A relevant part of this project includes the study of fate and ecotoxicity of different coating components and Life cycle analysis, which will be equaled as a figure of merit with performance factors to select the most promising systems and launch demonstrators for standard and field tests.