IATS · Development of an innovative, completely automated antifouling test system for professional examinations of marine coatings

Scientists try to develop coatings that prevent of fouling. Development of new coating formulation takes 5 years, beginning from R&D study to the date of launching. Taking into account the marine market development and the change of low requirements connected to the environmental issues this time is too long. Formulation time distances depend mainly on testing. In Europe the only method is testing in natural conditions. Antifouling tests are carried out in different regions of the world to check performance in different biological and chemical conditions. The high price and the long time of testing cause too long payback time for SME that exist on the market. That is the reason why just big companies are able to develop new coating formulation and the marked is not available for SMEs. Significant decrease of antifouling test performance will cause large decrease of new coating formulations development time and cost, will let SMEs to enter to the market and will decrease the coatings prices.The project’s idea is to develop an innovative, automated antifouling test system for professional examinations of coatings. The proposed system will let to perform tests in laboratory conditions and will decrease the test time by 500%. The fouling appearance will be measured by the image analyzer. The test system will allow to detect the fouling appearance even if it is not visible to the naked eye. The tests will be carried out automatically, 24 hours a day without supervision. The test data will be collected and stored on a continuous basis by the database and this data will be available on-line. Selected species will be so characteristic as to ensure that during laboratory tests the worst conditions for coatings that exist in natural conditions are replicated. The proposed project will let to construct relatively cheap, available for SME antifouling test set that let European SME to enter to the huge marine coatings market and become a rival company for market potentat