BPA-free surface coatings deliver refreshing sustainability benefits on water facility project
Van Os-Duracoat has built a partnership with Axalta spanning multiple decades. Established in 1968, Bornem, Belgium-based Van Os Duracoat provides industrial metal thermosetting and thermoplastic coating services to help protect metal surfaces against corrosion and UV radiation. The company has a particular focus on servicing the water treatment industry, specifying coatings solutions that adhere to its full range of requirements. Once agreed upon, it then delivers the physical coating process to a high standard.
Coatings play an important role for water treatment, offering a unique combination of properties to support a diverse range of applications, which include the provision of drinking water, industrial processes and wastewater treatment. Coatings help ensure the efficiency, longevity and cost-effectiveness of water treatment systems and infrastructure, all of which are crucial to maintaining effective and reliable operations.
Developing vital water infrastructure
The Kluizen water production centre, owned and operated by De Watergroep, the largest drinking water supplier in the Flanders region of Belgium, provides drinking water to a large part of Northwest Flanders. The facility delivers drinking water from surface water sources and is an important part of the region’s infrastructure. Commissioned in 1974, the capacity of the facility was expanded with the arrival of a second reservoir in 1996, which was followed by the addition of another production centre in October 2007, bringing the total capacity to 60 million litres per day. With further improvements now in the pipeline, this figure is expected to rise to 80 million litres per day in the coming years.
Van Os-Duracoat’s involvement with the project began with the expansion in the late 1990’s, at which point the business had already firmly established itself among the water supply community in Belgium as a leading job coater. The company was tasked with developing a specification for the upcoming expansion and set about understanding the performance criteria for the project.
With a significant portion of the pipes out in the open air and exposed to direct sunlight, UV resistance was critical. The harsh operating conditions required the highest possible level of corrosion-resistance, in accordance with the ISO12944 standard typically reserved for offshore and extreme industrial settings. Compliance with national drinking water regulations was also one of the defining criteria of the specification process.
Weighing up the options
The use of epoxy powder coatings was a potential option for the project. On one hand, it was a commonly used coating solution that could provide the required level of coating thickness to enable a pinhole free coating and sufficient surface protection. Conversely, such an alternative would have been more difficult to maintain and would not have provided the level of UV-resistance required for pipes exposed to direct sunlight. The presence of the chemical Bisphenol A within epoxy further diminished its appeal as the solution of choice.
While there is currently no legislation in place expressly prohibiting the use of Bisphenol A for drinking water applications, many public sector customers and other organisations, despite not being legally mandated to do so, are actively choosing to prioritise BPA-free coating alternatives for their projects.
Given the numerous specification requirements at play, Van Os-Duracoat opted for thermoplastic powder coatings for the project, recommending Axalta’s Abcite® solution.
While providing best-in-class corrosion protection that can withstand the most severe conditions, the solution is free of BPA, halogens and VOCs, all of which are increasingly undesirable for water applications. With the potential tightening of regulations around the use of BPA at some point in the future, the use of a coating solution comprised entirely of organic compounds was a key differentiator in Van Os-Duracoat’s decision. Capable of providing the required level of coating thickness in a single layer, the time savings over liquid coatings, which required multiple layers of coatings and intervals in between to allow for drying, presented yet an additional benefit.
Following a seamless and successful application process, the original Abcite® coating layer has remained in situ for several decades, providing a consistently high level of anticorrosion protection, resulting in a satisfied customer.
Raf Van Os, a business leader within Van Os-Duracoat, explained:
“In a business like Van Os-Duracoat, customer satisfaction is our guiding metric and from this perspective, the project was a real success.
“Aside from the business of actually applying the coating solution, we see it as our duty to truly understand our customer needs and make informed recommendations to meet their objectives. Many players within our industry remain committed to liquid coatings, and while these offer a number of performance advantages, we prefer to take a holistic view when specifying for the projects we work in. Given the option between two solutions with similar performance characteristics, we will always opt for the one that is more sustainable. These solutions have no adverse impact on the environment and on public health and so are a more responsible choice, particularly within water applications. We are seeing a growing awareness of the importance of sustainability and solutions like Abcite® aligned to this need.”
