EDITOR’S LETTER
In the middle of the health crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, we #stayathome but #wedontstop.
T
hese days, we are learning even more to work and live in a virtual world, where the importance of digital content is growing by the hour. Luckily, we were far-sighted. For a
long time now, our website, www.myipcm.com, has made all our magazines’ issues and a daily-updated “NEWS” section available for free. This means that even if we were not able to send you your hard copies (but we are sure we will make it happen), you will be reached by our content. ipcm®_Protective Coatings will continue to recount the strength of the European industry
in the world through the tool we know best: information. We will unite the corrosion prevention community through our content, because we firmly believe that providing updated information and tools to take advantage of this period’s slower rhythms can be useful to seize all the opportunities that will surely arise at the end of the health emergency. The issue you are about to read was conceived to be a special edition for several exhibitions and conferences in the field, the OTC 2020 Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, for example, which has been cancelled in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic. Indeed, it is a very rich and stimulating issue. We offer you top-notch articles about great technological innovations, cutting-edge systems, and success stories. Here are some trends in protective coatings that this issue highlights. Waterborne is the future even in protective coatings, once firmly convinced that solvent borne was the only possible choice for anticorrosion coatings or inhibitors or zinc-lamellar technology. The use of water-based products has increased as regulation of volatile organic compounds has restricted the availability and use of solvent-based ones. However, water-based products still show some performance issues in a few application, as for concrete sealers (see page 2). Environmental friendliness remains a hot topic for the protective coatings industry: research & development are focusing on chrome-free anti-corrosion inhibitors for ferrous metals (see page 42), on water-based VPCI and on biobased and biodegradable rust preventatives (see pages 10 and 40). For its exceptional mechanical properties, graphene is catching on in many different coating applications: in this issue, we report about what is believed to be the world’s largest single application of graphene on a cargo vessel’s hull (see page 24). Until now, we read about graphene application mainly as an additive of protective coatings for the general industry. Now, a graphene-based marine coating has been developed and is currently under extensive testing. The future will be graphene additives as an after-market product (ready to be mixed into the coatings on-site by the applicator) and as a component of powder coatings. Last but not least, thermal spray (High Velocity Thermal Spray with next generation alloy materials, in particular) is becoming more and more used as a high performance cladding solution to stop corrosion for without any further maintenance anticipated for at least 15+ years (see an application at page 20).
Alessia Venturi Editor-in-chief
We hope that you will enjoy the reading of this issue, both if you are confined at home or still working at full speed. Because, the world doesn’t stop!
ipcm® Protective Coatings - 2020 APRIL - N.33
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