Live demonstrations of leading edge technology for advanced high-tech research projects were the focus of an Open House at the Coatema Coating Machinery in Dormagen, Germany. 

More than 100 international visitors from the industry, research institutes and universities attended the daylong event at one of the largest facilities of its type.

Research and development

Dr Andreas Giessmann, President of Coatema, opened the event with a company introduction and vice President Thomas Kolbusch gave a detailed overview of the company and its newest machinery.

The R&D Project Manager Dr Nico Meyer introduced Coatema’s current activities in the field of research and development.  Four current research projects were presented by the coordinators of the projects.

The aims, procedures and latest results of the following projects were presented:

• EELICON (Electrochromic displays) presented by Dr Uwe Posset – Fraunhofer ISC.
• Flexlas (Laser Roll-to-Roll) presented by Dr Malte Schulz-Ruhtenberg - Fraunhofer ILT.
• Clean 4 Yield (Contamination and defect control for large scale Organic Electronic)presented by Dr Michiel Coenen – TNO Netherland.
• ML2 (MultiLayer – MicroLab) presented by Christoph Baum – Fraunhofer IPT.

Production lines

Following the presentations the guests were offered guided tours of the entire R&D centre with its extensive compliment of laboratory, pilot scale and production coating, laminating machinery, testing and meeting facilities. 

The tour included an opportunity to see a newly completed custom ordered prepreg production line and another custom production line for OLEDs and printed electronics ready to be delivered to customers.

Coating techniques

The afternoon was consumed with live demonstrations to show different techniques of coating and printing. This included a Slot Die demonstration on a versatile Coatema Click&Coat line. The line is a flexible construction concept that is said to allow a wide range of individual process modules to be combined.

 Other demonstrations included the roll-to-roll lab scale Smartcoater printing fluorescent inks with a gravure roller and a small single sheet Easycoater using a Slot Die coating head to demonstrate curtain coating.

The event was concluded by Dr Klaus Peter Crone, Coatema R&D Manager, who explained the various coating techniques during the demonstrations and gave an educational Drying Technologies presentation.

www.coatema.de