UV curable polyurethane (PU) coatings play a major role in a wide range of industries, due to their versatility, excellent performance, energy-efficient production and application, and 100% reactive components (no VOCs). However, they still largely depend on fossil-based raw materials.
On the flip side, biobased coatings are a small (5% in sales and 1 % in volume in the coatings business) but emerging market, thanks to sustainable targets of companies, increasing awareness of end-users and customers, and sustainability goals from policies. There is a growing push to increase opportunities for biobased systems, in line with the EU bioeconomy strategy and the global transition to a circular economy.
Moreover, biocoatings applications are largely influenced by the technical demand of the final product: the lower it is, the more biobased building-blocks and compounds are used. Thus, the need for new formulations for high-demanding sectors (industry, marine, automotive, wood…) that combine high- performance and sustainability.
