Decorative functional coating and/or printing of natural fibre/wood-based lightweight composites used for eco-friendly furniture applications - ECOFURN

Today the powder coating medium density fibre boards (MDF) technology can be seen as niche technology in the decorative coating market for wood-based furniture applications due to its limitation to the special designed MDF substrates. Other wood-based light-weight panels cannot be powder coated yet. The general aim of the project was to increase the know-how of the sustainable eco-friendly decorative powder coating by the identification, development and modification of light-weight natural fibre/wood- based composite materials suitable for powder coating, the necessary modification of the powder coating process for these substrates and the development of a functional decorative digital electrophotographic printing process on these materials for design individualization. During the course of the project, it has been possible to demonstrate that other temperature-sensitive materials, such as lightweight boards, can be powder coated and printed. Solutions for manufacturing powdercoatable lightweight components have been developed and the powder coating process for these lightweight materials has been modified because they behave differently when exposed to heat during the curing phase in the oven. The research has demonstrated that these lightweight materials heat up much more quickly in the infrared oven than MDF substrates, because of their low weight per unit area. As a result, the oven parameters need to be amended for these new materials in order to produce highquality coatings.

The results of the work have been published: 1) Developments and trends in powder coating of heat-sensitive substrates, PTF BPI 2014 CONFERENCE (Sept. 2014, A-Kuchl); 2) Vortragsreihe Pulverlackierung von MDF und Holzwerkstoffen, MDF Pulversymposium (Nov. 2014, D- Markdorf); 3) Powder Coating of wood based panels, Decorative Surface Conference (März.2015, D-München); 4) Ecofurn: Decorative functional coating and/or printing of natural fibre/wood-based lightweight composites used for eco-friendly furniture application, M-ERA-NET Conference 2015 (Sept. 15, Warsaw University of Technology, Warschau, Polen); 5) Decorative Functional Powder Coating of Wood-based Lightweight Composites used for Eco-friendly Furniture Applications, Decorative Surface Conference 2016 Decorative Surfaces Conference, April 6-7, 2016, Leipzig; 6) Decorative Surfaces Conference 2016 in Leipzig, WOODKPLUS News (Kompetenzzentrum Holz GmbH; 201. Ausgabe, 14.04.16); 7) Decorative Surfaces Conference – Dekoroberflächen heute und morgen, material+technik möbel 02/16; 8) Pulverlacke auch für Leichtbauplatten, Journal für Oberflächentechnik (JOT 5.2017); 9) Powder Coating Lightweight Boards, International Surface Technology (IST 2.2017 Volume 10; 10) Holzoberfläche aus Pulver, Spirit 2017 | 2; 11) Studieren, Forschen, Anwenden, Berner Fachhochschule BFH (Video, 12.06.2017); 12) Richtlinie Pulverbeschichtung von MDF und Holzwerkstoffen des VDI (Verein Deutscher Ingenieure; geplante Veröffentlichung 2018); 13) Pulverlacke auch für Leichtbauplatten - Entwicklung von Prozessen und Substratmaterialien für die Pulverbeschichtung von Leichtbauplatten, EPS – Der Pulvertreff 2018, 16.10.2018 – 17.10.2018 – München, Deutschland

Project Details