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Biggest European Coatings Show successful

Another very successful European Coatings SHOW and CONGRESS ends after four days of lively exhibition activity and top-class knowledge transfer. With 962 exhibitors from 42 countries in seven exhibition halls and around 26,000 trade visitors from more than 100 nations, it is the world's biggest and most important trade show for the production of high-quality coatings, paints, sealants, construction chemicals and adhesives. Europe's biggest coatings congress, which took place partly parallel to the trade show, attracted more than 650 participants to Nürnberg from 37 countries. This year's SHOW and CONGRESS clearly showed that the trend to sustainability is a major innovation driver for the paint and coatings industry. The organizers of the European Coatings SHOW and PAINTINDIA also announced the strengthening of their worldwide coatings cooperation by signing further contracts during the show.

The next European Coatings SHOW takes place in the Exhibition Centre Nuremberg from 21–23 April 2015.

Nürnberg hosts the global coatings community every two years. Some two-thirds of the exhibitors and visitors at the European Coatings SHOW are international. The exhibitors presented the whole spectrum of innovations on the market again this year: from new raw materials for coatings, printing inks and adhesives, laboratory and production equipment to the latest technologies for test and measurement. The innovations shown and the presentations clearly indicated that sustainability is still the driving force in coatings technology.

There is a big demand for coatings that help to reduce energy consumption, or raw materials that permit a low content of volatile gases (VOC) in paints and coatings. Also recognizable is a trend to renewable and biobased raw materials for paints and coatings.

Sustainability was also the theme of the two keynotes that opened the European Coatings CONGRESS on Monday, 18 March 2013. In his keynote, Dr. Aditya Ranade of Lux Research presented an innovative assessment approach for sustainability that can be used to distinguish greenwashed solutions from solutions with genuine sustainability value. The second plenary speaker, Dr. Klemens Bartmann of Axalta Coatings Systems, also confirmed that sustainability is the most important innovation driver in the coatings industry, but advocated that the term should not only cover environmental compatibility. On the contrary, it should be defined on a broader basis and include properties like "high quality" and "smart functions", because they enable permanent and long-term use of end products like cars or buildings. Examples of such functions are easy-to-clean or scratchproof.

The first day of the European Coatings CONGRESS also included the presentation of the European Coatings Award to Dr. Grégory Delmas of Arkema for his congress paper entitled "A new way to ensure metal protection with waterborne dispersions". Delmas and his team have developed a water-borne binder that requires no further addition of a pigment for corrosion protection and can be used as a "single coat direct-to-metal". Whereas two or more coats of corrosion protection coatings had to be applied previously, a single coat is now sufficient. This not only saves costs, but also offers a corrosion protection solution that the paint and coatings industry has been waiting for for years, according to the jury.

Boosting the "power of three"

In the course of the trade show the organizers of the European Coatings SHOW and PAINTINDIA also signed further contracts for their cooperation. This action by Vincentz Network, NürnbergMesse and Colour Publications is to expand their partnership and strengthen the global alliance of leading coatings events. "We complement each other perfectly, " says a delighted Dilip Raghavan, Managing Director of Colour Publications, the organizer of PAINTINDIA. "Quality is very important for all of us. PAINTINDIA and the European Coatings SHOW have provided high-quality platforms for the industry's innovations for years and do not want to grow only in quantitative terms."



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