Over the years, smart coatings have been tacitly defined as the most functional of functional coatings. Of course, functionality of coatings and other materials has changed. A coating that might have been thought of as smart in the past may not be considered as such now. Over time, one generation of smart coatings becomes merely functional, and a new generation of coatings takes over in the smart coatings category.
n-tech Research believes that this is what is happening right now. Smart coatings are about to take a great leap forward in “intelligence” that will lead to new smart coating products and product classes. In turn, this represents new opportunities for materials firms (including substrate firms), coatings machine makers and even OEMs. Table 1 shows how we think smart coatings will evolve over time with regard to intelligence. Many relevant R&D programs now appear to be reaching a point where they are just a year or two away from leading to viable commercial products with a level of intelligence that has not been seen before.