More than 220 delegates, 16 sponsors, and 15 exhibitors gathered in Mumbai for the 15th International Coatings Conference, featuring prominent sponsors from the industry.

The 15th International Conference on Surface Protective Coatings was held on Sep. 15-16 at Hotel Lalit, Mumbai, along with the 20th Anniversary of SSPC India. More than 220 delegates participated, with 16 sponsors and 15 exhibitors. Prominent among the sponsors were AkzoNobel, Kansai Nerolac, Berger, Shalimar, Cleancoat, Growel Paints, Jotun, Cordelite, JSW Paints, etc. The conference was in Majestic Hall No.1. At the same time, the exhibition was hosted in the adjacent hall, allowing the participants to attend technical sessions and interact with exhibitors.

The Inaugural Programme started on the dot with the National Anthem and lamp lighting. In his welcome speech, Prof. A.S. Khanna, Chairman of SSPC, stressed the need for such focused conferences which discuss important paint issues. Discussion on paint coatings also becomes very important, considering the total paint market, which assures jobs to many and is a revenue generator. In his inaugural speech, B. Ramakrishnan dealt in detail with the Global Paint market, issues that keep the market going, the ups and downs of the paint market, and factors that stabilise it. The Chief Guest, Prof. Dr. Sanjay Mathur, Director of the University of Cologne, gave a brilliant insight into the Functional aspects of coatings. He stressed that with several techniques such as nano-technology and others, a protective coating can also be made to achieve a function such as self-cleaning, self-healing, anti-microbial action, etc. Dr. B.P. Mallik from Growel covered the coating scenario of the Indian Industry. He stressed the need to adopt waterborne technology in India and be at par with other International Technologies. Amrit Rekhi, Vice President of SSPC India, inaugurated the EXPO and released the Souvenir.

Technical session 1 was on Infrastructure, where floor coatings, coatings for Infrastructure, and Road marking coatings were discussed. Two talks on Road marking paints by Yadav of Asian Paints and the other by Ishan Ravashia of VOXCO Paint highlight the present situation of road marking paints. The next session of Sustainability was chaired by B.P. Mallik and invited Sanjay Chowdhury of Berger Paint. The session’s highlight was a talk on Solar Heat Reflective Coatings for energy savings by P P Joshi of Thermogreen Cool Coat Pvt. Ltd. And another one on Green Coatings by Mahesh Aradhaya of Growel India Paints.

Technical session 3 was on Protective Coatings, Chaired by Nikam of Kansai Nerolac. He invited Sankara Papavinasam, who gave a very lucid presentation on pipeline coatings, giving details on present systems and standards being followed. Santosh Kumar of AXESS very nicely inaugurated the issue of Paint Coating Management. He told how people do not strictly follow the specifications, and goof in surface preparation and final inspection. 

Tapan Dhar gave a systematic innovation on protective coatings. The Two Keynote talks by Mukesh Madhup of Amatech Innovation and the other on semiconductors and surface engineering opened the eyes of paint technologies and several additional avenues in paint coatings. Some people also expressed fear over job reductions if AI becomes more effective. The presentation by Ravichandran on Coating Applications related to Design life was quite interesting. The salient feature of the Next two sessions was – A talk on the Market of Nano-technology by Swapan Ghosh of Harind Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals, which raised hope for nano-technology use in the coming decade. A discussion by Sachin Joshi of Greenovac on using single-component coatings over multi-layer coating resulted in the hope of easy paint formulation in the future.

For more info visit : https://www.sspcindia.org/