Coating Connections Podcast: Covestro

Driving Innovation Together: Covestro Visits Superfici America’s Lab

At Superfici America, collaboration is at the heart of innovation—and our recent partnership with Covestro is a great example of that. We recently had the pleasure of welcoming Aaron Lockhart from Covestro into our lab for a day of coating trials, experimentation, and shared learning.

Aaron and his team at Covestro are constantly developing new material solutions for the coatings industry. While their in-lab innovations are impressive, getting those technologies into real-world applications can sometimes be a challenge. That’s where hands-on testing with production-scale equipment becomes invaluable.

View the full episode on YouTube

“The things we do in our lab don’t always translate directly into the real world,” Aaron explained. “Having the chance to work with Superfici America’s equipment and team helps us validate and refine our materials before they reach customers.”

During the visit, we tested several 1K waterborne products, including a water-based UV coating. We experimented with different dry schedules and film thicknesses to understand performance across a variety of production parameters.

All spraying was done using our Mini Plus Reciprocating Flatline Spray Machine, and we tested different drying methods, including:

• Laminar drying

• Jet drying

• Our six-tray stacking oven (ETC1)

This full-spectrum testing helped evaluate how Covestro’s materials perform under real production conditions.

Aaron noted how valuable it is to work directly with full-scale equipment:

“Being able to translate our solutions into things that actually add value is critical. Having real production equipment to test on eliminates the guesswork for our customers.”

Of course, not every test yielded perfect results—some outcomes were great, others pointed to opportunities for improvement. And that’s exactly what makes these sessions so important.

“The things we learned here gave us insight—not just into what works, but also into what needs refinement. That’s the whole purpose of these trials.”

We’re grateful to Aaron and Covestro for taking the time to collaborate with us. At Superfici America, we always welcome coating suppliers, raw materials manufacturers, and other industry partners into our lab. Together, we’re working to push the coatings industry forward—one trial at a time.

Thanks again, Covestro. We’re looking forward to the next round of innovation.

To learn more about Superfici America or to schedule a lab test, visit our website at superficiamerica.com