Breaking new ground for a biobased railcar coating
Polish railway vehicle manufacturer Newag SA broke new ground in resource-efficient coatings when he coated two diesel locomotives with a paint based on renewable resources.
Lankwitzer Lackfabrik of Berlin supplied the coating, which it developed in close collaboration with Covestro using the biobased coating hardener “Desmodur eco N 7300”. Seventy percent of the carbon in this polyurethane raw material comes from biomass.
Setting off from competition
“With a new product, a coating manufacturer’s first priority is, of course, to fulfill the customer’s specifications,” says Mateusz Fedko, project manager at Newag. “If the coating offers added value on top of that, as is the case here with the renewable raw materials, it gives us a very good opportunity to set ourselves apart from the competition.”
Tests passed – and not just for rail vehicles
At Newag’s headquarters in Poland, the “Evoclear 294 / PH 94-0000” coating system was sprayed just like a standard clearcoat. Joint testing conducted by Lankwitzer Lackfabrik and Covestro confirms the high performance of the clearcoat: It is on par with polyurethane systems of petrochemical provenance. The abrasion resistance and gloss stability of the coating were even 70 percent higher compared with standard coatings, as the partners demonstrated with the Amtec Kistler car wash test. Next they are planning a joint long-term weathering test.
Graffiti can be removed easily
The biobased clearcoat also fulfills the specific requirements of the railway vehicle industry. For example, it displays good resistance to cleaning agents, particularly those used to remove graffiti (DB standard “Blatt 39”), and to alkaline agents, hydrochloric acid and phosphoric acid. Tests confirm that graffiti can be removed easily and gently.
