It’s no secret that humans are beginning to innovate on an exponential curve. Computer processing speeds double every two years and technologies thought to be impossible only a decade ago are already in widespread use. With that in mind, where does that leave the paint and coating industry 10 years from now? What about 20? In all honesty, it’s impossible to answer that question due to the rate of innovation.
That being said, here’s our take on what the future of coatings may entail:
Nanotechnology Coating – Most people have heard of nanotechnology, in short, it is the science of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular level. Translation? Robots or organisms that are too small to see but that can be controlled. In medicine, doctors dream of the day when they can pour a tube of nanobots into a cancer patient’s nose, and the nanobots will track down and eradicate their cancer cells. In the coating world, nanotechnology might look very different. With a self-healing coating or a car that waxes itself, the possibilities are endless.
Green Coating – While the “green” paint and coating movement has been happening for some time now there are remarkable few products on the market today that are truly neutral to the environment (shameless shout out: EonCoat has no VOCs or HAPs!). It’s entirely possible that the green coating of the future will also act as one large solar cell. What if you could power a skyscraper with an applied coating?
Coating Robotics – We already see some of this at work in car production. For quite some time now it’s been robots who paint our cars. What else will be able to train robots to paint? Maybe one day soon you’ll be looking at purchasing your “painting rig” instead of hiring for a large job.
Ever wonder why we all aren’t flying cars now? Well, there are flying cars, it just turns out they are too expensive for most of us (if you thought people were bad drivers in two dimensions consider the safety of the skies if a 16-year-old could get a car flying license)!
The future is now, but innovation is spread across the globe. Advancements are rapidly being made in all three of these categories. The trick moving forward will be to see who can make their products economically feasible and garner widespread adoption. What do you think about the list above? Any big technologies missed?
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