Smart Coatings – Reaching the Big Time with Many More Opportunities

By Cynthia Challener

Because there is no one universal definition of smart coatings, the size of the smart coatings market is difficult to assess. As a result, the numbers reported by different market research firms can vary dramatically based on the types of coatings included in their studies. For instance, Grandview Research estimates that the global smart coatings market, including self-healing, self-cleaning, self-stratifying/assembling, and similar coating technologies, was worth $885.5 million in 2015. Transparency Market Research predicts the value of the global smart coatings market will reach approximately $1 billion by 2024.

This firm defines smart coatings as films or layers made up of coating materials that have pre-defined characteristics and display certain properties upon reacting to external stimuli such as light, pressure, or electric current and includes anticorrosion, self-dimming, self-cleaning, self-healing, biomedical, and other coatings. Both of these num­bers are much smaller than that reported by n-tech Research, which predicts the global smart coatings market will be worth $8.1 billion by 2021. This firm has a much broader definition of smart coatings-their estimate covers electro­chromic, hydrophilic, hydrophobic and omniphobic, microencapsulation and vascular self-healing, multifunctional, other self-dimming and color shifting, photovoltaic, and piezoelectric and piezo-magnetic coatings, as well as smart anticorrosion/antifouling, antimicrobial and antifungal coatings, and self-healing polymer foams and hydrogels.

“While some uncertainty remains regarding what should or should not be classified as smart coatings, there definitely is agreement that coatings need to provide added functionality beyond the fundamental performance requirements of beautification and basic protection,” states Jamil Baghdachi, a professor at Eastern Michigan University and organizer and chair­man of the annual Smart Coatings Conference held in February in Orlando, FL. “The speed of change and innovation in the smart coatings fields has been phenomenal over the last 10 years, and this rate of development will only continue to accelerate,” he asserts.

“New technologies and approaches are being introduced continually. Of course, some of them do not have commercial applicability, but they have interesting properties and raise provocative ques­tions that drive further development of technologies that will eventually be commercial. It is a very exciting field with the potential to have significant impacts on the industry and society,” Baghdachi adds.