$3.4 million project to take coating technology from university lab to global market by 2021

An announcement from Deakin said the university’s Institute for Future Materials and textile technology company Xefco had developed a novel “Atmospheric Plasma Coating System” for simpler, cheaper and better textile application of water-repellent, fire retardant or other coatings. The collaborative project’s planned total budget is given as $3.4 million.

“Thanks to support from our partners and IMCRC, we will now aim to improve and optimise the functional coating process, to get this lab-scale technology ready for production testing at a textile mill and global commercial use by 2021,” said  Dr Weiwei Lei, a Senior Research Fellow in Plasma at IFM.

Proficiency Consulting designs and makes specialised production machinery in Geelong, with a history of “developing new to market, bespoke manufacturing equipment”.