(685b) Sustainability Assessment of Nanocoating Manufacturing

Nanopaint is a very promising coating material in the coating industry, as the coating layer using this type of material could demonstrate significantly improved coating performance or even a number of new functional capacities. However, there have been a number of serious environmental concerns, as during the nanopaint manufacturing and application phases, nanoparticles in paint and coating layers could enter the working environment through emission into air and water. A further concern is the nanoparticle release into the environment during the product use phase. The unintended environmental and health risks, as well as the economic and social challenges associated with the use of nanocoating products, have not been systematically estimated. Over the past few years, we have explored the feasibility of using a unique life cycle-based sustainability assessment method to investigate the nanocoating sustainability issues.

In this paper, we present our recent progress on nanocoating sustainability by focusing on the nanocoating manufacturing process and product performance. We propose a sustainability metrics system that could be used to provide a more comprehensive assessment of the environmental, economic, and social performances of the manufacturing process and the product. We will also introduce a hybrid approach by combining both subjective and objective methods to determine weighting factors associated with the metrics in different sustainability categories. A comprehensive case study on sustainable manufacturing of automotive nanocoating will be illustrated to show methodological efficacy.