Industrial breakthrough of plasma deposited functional Nanocoatings for Filtration Applications - NextGen

Programme(s)
H2020-EU.3. - PRIORITY 'Societal challenges
H2020-EU.2.3. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs
H2020-EU.2.1. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies

Topic(s) EIC-SMEInst-2018-2020 - SME instrument

Call for proposal H2020-SMEInst-2018-2020-1

Funding Scheme SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1

Grant agreement ID: 887558

Project description
Highly oil-repellent coating to clean the air
Demand is high for industrial air cleaners such as filters used to prevent the absorption of oily pollutant particles emitted from different media, as for example oil smoke, oil mist and asphalt smoke. Current filtration applications include oil-repellent coating where nonwoven materials are lowered into a chemical solution that sticks to the surface. Known as dip coating, it tends to block the pore structure of the filters. The EU-funded NextGen project is developing a new approach to provide higher levels of oil repellence on nonwoven filter substrates. Specifically, it is a low-pressure plasma roll-to-roll coating machine that uses magnetrons for plasma polymerisation. NextGen provides lower chemicals consumption, improved energy efficiency and 100 % water reduction.

Objective
The nonwoven filter media industry needs for new oil repellent coating equipment in order to be more sustainable and cost-effective than current practices. Today, the rising demand for cleaner air has been accompanied with highly-oil-repellent coating development in order to provide filters with enhanced efficiency preventing the absorption of oily pollutant particles emitted from different media such as oil smoke, oil mist, asphalt smoke. Conventional methods to oil-repellent coating includes dip-coating, a process where nonwoven materials are lowered into a chemical solution that sticks to the surface. This requires high volume of chemicals which poses environmental concerns and additional heat treatment or curing steps which further increase energy consumption and use of toxic agents. Dip-coating also tends to affect/block the pore structure of the filters and, with new advances in polymeric nanofibers filter media development, the dip-coating method starts to be precluded by the industry.
Europlasma offers with NextGen a totally new approach to provide the highest levels of oil repellency on nonwoven filter substrates. NextGen is a low-pressure plasma roll-to-roll coating machine which uses magnetrons for plasma polymerisation. This novel concept has been designed for the industry providing high deposition speed (50nm/min), high coating speed (10m/min) and with a cost of ownership as low as 0.4€/m². NextGen provides much lower chemicals consumption (90% compared to dip coating, 50% compared to existing plasma method), lower energy efficiency (50% reduction) and 100% water reduction. With 20 years of experience in the plasma industry, Europlasma benefits from a strong network of customers, distributors and worldwide partners to support its development. They expect from NextGen’s commercialisation to increase their annual revenues (€13.8M by 2026) and workforce (13 new employees) but also support the adoption of greener process accessible to the textile industry.