Super durable paint-repellent coating for long life anti-graffiti protection (PRISTINE)

Graffiti costs over £1bn/year to the UK economy, ~£5.3bn/year EU-wide, £9.16bn/year in the US (Valspar, 2015), and £1.48bn/year in Australia (Keep Australia Beautiful, 2019) and graffiti-based vandalism is on the rise, with British Transport Police recording the highest attacks in Q1, 2018 (389 attacks) since 2010\. Graffiti tends to appear on rolling stock, stations, tunnels, bridges, trackside walls and commercial/residential buildings.

Graffiti on trains, railways and buildings is a major cost financially to both industry and public bodies who are required to remove all occurrences from their property. It also has a huge impact socially, ranging from negatively affecting the perception of areas to increased incidents of graffiti taggers trespassing onto rail lines that have ultimately led to deaths.

Current anti-graffiti coatings are either sacrificial or permanent.

1. Sacrificial coatings, while cheap, incur large long-term labour costs for periodic removal and re-application to ensure peak performance.
2. Permanent coatings also incur long term cleaning costs, and many require specific removal solutions that are often made of aggressive chemicals resulting in both environmental and health concerns.

Whilst many anti-graffiti coatings are available, manufacturers and providers are looking to greener alternatives and there is still a significant issue with graffiti and its growing global costs in terms of removal to be solved.

Therefore, there exists an opportunity and need to improve on current anti-graffiti coatings.

The PRISTINE project is looking into the advancement of permanent anti-graffiti coatings, by developing a durable paint repellent coating, which competes with commercially available coatings in terms of environmental resistance but has improved paint-repellency and easy clean characteristics using greener materials.

Such a coating would provide a true anti-graffiti surface. This will have far-reaching impact across a wide range of sectors, including transport, construction and automotive. Successful achievement of a more efficient coating that reduces cleaning requirements could reduce rail passenger delays caused by removal teams, eliminate the increasing costs to governments to remove graffiti (London spends £100 million per year alone on graffiti cleaning), reduce the requirement of harsh cleaning chemicals, safeguarding the environment and health of graffiti cleaners, and reduce trespassing onto the rail lines by graffiti artists as their canvases would be less attractive, which in turn would prevent fatal incidents from occurring.

PRISTINE technology is based on incorporating novel greener functional additives into existing coating resins making them highly repellent to spray paint, whilst providing a durable coating.