The kick-off meeting of FireCellCoat project was celebrated on January 22nd 2020 in Braunschweig, Germany, hosted by the project Coordinator Fraunhofer WKI. Participants from NTI (Norwegian Institute of Wood Technology), VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Fraunhofer were present in the face-to-face meeting, while Teknos participated on-line.
In the meeting, the plans of different work packages were discussed. VTT is leading the work on preparation of fire-retardant microfibrillated cellulose (MFC), in which the high-consistency enzymatic fibrillation of cellulose (HefCel) technology will be utilised. VTT also has background in using HefCel MFC together with nanoscale pigments in fire-resistant coatings on wood as well as on nanocellulose emulsion templating towards weatherproof applications. Fraunhofer WKI will exploit their expertise on work focused to polymerization and coatings formulation, with the objective to develop polymer-based wood coatings for exterior application with durable fire retardancy. In addition, they will work on fire testing of coated substrates. NTI will lead the work on application and product performance, including reaction to fire, influence of application methods and coating performance. They will also work on the sustainability assessment of the developed concepts at a later stage of the project. Teknos is the industrial partner of the project, providing feedback from that perspective.
The discussion during the meeting provided useful feedback to all the partners for fine-tuning their work plans. With lively discussion, the kick-off meeting provided a productive start to the project, enabling all of the partners to begin their respective work.
FireCellCoat 