In the EU, it is estimated that 786,000 workers are currently exposed to toxic, carcinogenic hexavalent chromium.1 However, developing effective, chromate-free alternatives has proven to be a key challenge for the coatings industry, as well as the end-product industries that rely on effective corrosion protection.
REACH legislation has been pushed back from September 2017 to January 2019 to allow the performance gap between the current industry-standard and safer, chromate-free inhibitors to close. In that time, an innovative, smart product has hit the market: an inhibitor that replaces toxic chemicals with disruptive micro-reservoir technologies, creating ‘smart’ coatings that last longer.