Page 30 - Plastics News April 2025
P. 30
COMPANY NEWS
Covestro to Open Automated Laboratory
for Developing Coating and Adhesive Formulations
♦ Focus on crosslinkers and binders
♦ Testing of tens of thousands of formulations
per year possible
♦ Digitalization and automation enables data-
driven research and development
♦ Networked robotics allows more efficient
data generation for even more segment-
specific application testing
♦ Experts available at European Coatings
Show in Nuremberg
oating and adhesive manufacturers are times more efficient and precise. This allows us
under pressure: They compete for mar- to optimize existing formulations faster or even
Cket share, optimize their products in develop completely new formulations for and
rapid succession, and must focus on efficiency together with our customers. We can say: We
while ensuring sustainability and regulatory are reaching a new level of modern research,"
compliance. At the same time, products need to says Thomas Büsgen, head of the laboratory.
become increasingly circular – without compro-
mising the properties of a coating or adhesive. A Testing Formulations with Covestro Binders
critical factor in all of this: The right binders and and Crosslinkers
crosslinkers. Their development takes place at Specifically, the new laboratory will test formula-
material manufacturers like Covestro. The Ger- tions with Covestro binders and crosslinkers for
man company is now addressing these require- coatings and adhesives. Their clever selection
ments by announcing that in the course of 2025, ensures properties such as hardness, adhesion,
it will open a specifically developed, automated opacity, gloss, or durability. Such formulations
laboratory for optimizing coating and adhesive typically consist of seven to 15 components,
formulations to provide even better support to whose combination determines the properties
its customers. of the final product. The resulting high number
of possible combinations means that standard
"With our automated laboratory, we can work
together with our customers on the future of formulations are usually used. The new laborato-
coatings and adhesives. Because it operates al- ry now enables more extensive test series, also
most completely autonomously and learns from thanks to the computer-aided design of test se-
our existing knowledge and data lake as well as ries and the use of automation.
newly generated data, it makes the process of "Our new automated laboratory gives us more
optimizing and developing formulations many
30 PLASTICS NEWS April 2025
