Decoat

The last decade has experienced a strong increase in technological developments for improved material functionality. One of these involves surface treatments, which employ complex (multilayer) structures designed to provide multifunctionality in a single solution. This definition includes functional and performance coatings on textiles, paints on plastics, foil lamination and adhesion layers for plastics parts (polymer-polymer and polymer-metal connections). These ‘coatings’ have a wide range of advantages and benefits but currently cannot be recycled because of their hybrid nature.

The main goal of DECOAT is to enable the circular use of textiles and plastic parts with (multilayer) ‘coatings’, which are typically not recyclable yet.

These ‘coatings’ comprise functional and performance coatings and paints as well as adhesion layers. Therefore, novel triggerable smart polymer material systems and the corresponding recycling processes will be developed. The triggerable solutions will be based on smart additives (like microcapsules or microwave triggered additives) for the ‘coating’ formulations and will be activated by a specific trigger (heat, humidity, microwave, chemical).

Within the larger theme of “debonding” a specific challenge is the recycling of scrap and end-of-life parts containing integrated electronics (from smart textiles, smart plastics and wearables).