Industrial safety coatings

A very interesting property of smart coatings is their ability to modify their optical response autonomously, without any power supply. This allows us to intervene for the protection of workers and equipment in very restrictive environments, where any electrical source is totally or partially forbidden during certain phases of intervention.

No electricity needed, the color change in a smart coating (paint & ink) occurs only when the threshold is crossed. It is a thermodynamic process that acts as a passive solution. It's all in the initial programming of the product to calibrate the right trigger threshold and the reversible or irreversible nature of the color change.

Color change coatings are becoming alternative solutions to electronic sensors for equipment hazards monitoring. For example, the use of thermochromic coatings can replace thermocouples and/or thermometers: this is now a reality.

For some protection uses, the alert function sought is a visual detection. The process of color change is often preferred for its simplicity of interpretation and its understanding by everyone.

For example, an operator who observes the color change of a thermochromic ink or paint on the coated surface :

• of a motor to warn of an overheating condition or of an electrical element to identify a short circuit,
• a tank to visualize its filling level,
• an industrial pipe (or valves, ovens...) to control the appearance of a heat peak.

In this case, we will adjust the color change to the malfunction to follow. We will integrate the notions of duration of the event (time scale, number of ON/OFF cycles), choice of colors, implementation, improvement of the safety and health of workers...

For certain health protection risks for workers, our teams develop solutions to create an interaction with an optical device (camera, video surveillance, drone, robots...).

Based on the targeted application, we adjust the wavelength, the selectivity and the reactivity of the coatings. This allows us to automate the detection, for example, an smart coating allowing a drone to detect the presence of a leak on an overhead pipe, an abnormal heat peak...

This wavelength selective work allows us to adapt the detection to the demand. We can accentuate the desired component according to the RGB color space. Other requests lead us to interact in the infrared or ultraviolet range to monitor health-products.

For certain equipment, the objective is to detect the first signs of a malfunction.

In this context, our R&D services are developing a series of technical smart coatings, paints and inks, incorporating for instance fluorescent and/or phosphorescent components to monitor health-materials.

Some solutions are currently deployed for quality control of certain products during production and/or after return to the after-sales service (to visualize the conformity of a product). Other applications aim to detect the early signs of corrosion, the presence of residual water on a product to prevent the occurrence of safety risks...