Development of flame-retardant powder coatings for use on wood substrates

To date, it has been used most frequently for coating metal substrates. However, there is a trend towards also coating temperature-sensitive materials, such as wood-based materials, with powder coatings. When coating materials based on natural substances, the focus is not only on sustainability but also on component safety. This includes the functionalisation of natural-based materials and their surfaces to make them flame-retardant, for example. In addition to the actual fire, the release of smoke during ignition is one of the main hazards, as smoke development in the event of fire is the most common cause of death. It is therefore important to drive forward developments that delay ignition and reduce smoke development when using wood-based materials, for example.
This is where the current project at the IHD comes in, which has been funded since October 2023 as part of the Industrial Collective Research Programme (IGF) with the aim of developing a flame-retardant low-temperature or UV powder coating for use on temperature-sensitive substrates such as solid and laminated wood or wood composite panels. This will take place over the next few years as part of the "FRPowder" project in collaboration with the Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research Dresden e. V. The new flame-retardant powder coating should have the following properties compared to previous powder coatings in the event of fire:

• delayed flammability,
• low smoke development upon ignition and
• release of a significantly reduced amount of heat.

Initial investigations at the IHD have shown that conventional powder coatings do not have a flame-retardant effect, are not specially equipped and therefore ignite very quickly. This can be demonstrably delayed by introducing flame retardants into the powder coating. This has the advantage of increasing the product safety of coated wood-based materials in interior design and at the same time contributing to climate and resource protection through the increased use of environmentally friendly powder coatings.
The project with the funding code A722000 is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy as part of the "Industrial Collective Research" funding guideline.

Contact persons for the project:
Lisa Kleber (lisa.kleber@ihd-dresden.de)
Petra Schulz (petra.schulz@ihd-dresden.de)