710833Powerdrop: a breakthrough technology for precision deposition of industrial fluids in clean, high volume, high value manufacturingClosedGRD Proof of ConceptInnovate UKPowerdrop is a breakthrough technology for precision deposition of viscous, industrial materials in clean, high volume, high value manufacturing. As it can deposit virtually any material with precision, and at speed, it is applicable to the wide range of end user industries and applications where existing coating techniques like spraying have high levels of waste and other disadvantages. These existing deposition technologies are wasteful in material, energy and process efficiency. For example, in the automotive industry 40% of the sprayed paint never lands on the car. This over-sprayed paint must be collected and disposed of. The cost worldwide in wasted paint alone is over £1.6 billion per year. To this must be added the capital and energy costs of air handling and waste disposal. Whilst inkjet technologies offer extremely high levels of deposition efficiency, these have neither the throughput, nor ability to handle viscous fluids needed for most of these applications. Powerdrop is based neither on ink jet, nor on traditional coatings technologies like spraying or screen printing. Instead it uses a completely new architecture to deliver some of the advantages of both. Large scale coating applications include automotive coating, depositing glaze for ceramic tiles, depositing protective coatings onto printed material, electrodes for solar panels and adhesives used to manufacture consumer products. In addition, the control that Powerdrop brings to the coatings process will enable new opportunities to use 2D and 2.5D functional coatings to improve product design and performance. Applications include texturing ceramic tiles, adding wood-grain effects to laminates and 2.5D security features on ID cards. The objective of this project is to create a Proof of Concept demonstration of continuous coating of automotive paint and other industrially important materials of interest to potential customers.