Putting anti-fouling coatings to the test

B Daehne, BT Watermann, C Fürle

EUROPEAN COATINGS JOURNAL 03 - 2018

Self-cleaning coatings offer ship owners critical protection against fouling and the issues this can cause. However, the mandatory tests for these coatings do not represent real-life conditions for the intended use. A novel circular test bench, that was developed in the R&D project “FoulProtect” funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (FKZ: 03SX370E), uses a dynamic method to obtain accurate information, for example, on the minimum speeds required to activate self-cleaning effects and prevent fouling.