Bridging the Gap Between Bench-Top Coater and Industrial-Scale Roll to Roll Coater

Presented by Dr. Sid Vaijapurkar, FAUSTEL

Market-leading roll-to-roll coaters and converters focus on product and process development due to the reasons of increased competition and/or need to innovate on consumer driven or policy motivated factors such as sustainability. The prompt introduction of well-researched new products often yields a technological advantage and demonstrates market leadership. Every successful product starts as an idea that is then developed from early stages into a prototype using bench-top, laboratory scale coaters.

Bench-top coaters such as Spiral bars, (Baker) Film applicators, Casting knives, Gap applicators etc. are commonly used tools during the early phases of coating investigation and experiments. These instruments are an excellent choice during the initial stages of coating landscape reconnaissance, data generation, and validation. However, these tools vastly differ from industrial scale roll-to-roll machinery which is the desired final destination for any idea/prototype. This paper will discuss how to bridge the gap between the bench-top coater and the industrial coater.