OSMOSIS has been successfully funded through the H2020 SME Instrument Phase 2 program (ref: 757088). Over the course of the 2 year activity, started in April 2017, ENBIO will utilise their patented, novel, green, ambient temperature blast coating technique known as CoBlast to prepare metal surfaces for adhesive bonding. CoBlast uses a co-incident blast stream of abrasive and coating media to simultaneously remove the metal’s passivating layer while depositing a coating on the newly-exposed reactive metal surface. The process is carried out at room temperature and pressure using dry-compressed air. The process is currently used to apply thermal control coatings for Space for ESA as part of the Solar Orbiter mission.
ENBIO are investigating the use of the CoBlast process to apply REACH compliant adhesive primers for the Space sector as part of the OSMOSIS activity. To determine the adhesion promotion benefits of the CoBlast coating, comparison testing is undertaken against commercial conversion coatings. As well as testing and verifying applicability of the CoBlast surfaces, ENBIO will be designing equipment to scale the CoBlast process, and drafting license agreements to ensure the OSMOSIS technology can be exploited at the end of the project.