PPG holds inaugural Innovation Summit in Switzerland

PPG held its inaugural Innovation Summit in Montreux, Switzerland, to provide customers across market segments with an overview of innovative paint and coatings technologies that the company is developing.

Recent innovations, highlighted during the three-day summit, include:

  • Paint that changes color in response to heat – known as thermochromic technology – enabling assessment of an overheating object simply by sight
  • Automotive paint systems that minimize energy consumption, emissions and operating costs, including one system that reduces energy costs to paint a car by 30 percent.
  • A technology inspired by eggplants that allows solar heat to pass through topcoat pigments while reflecting heat away from the surface of aircraft, automobiles and buildings.
  • A coatings technology that enables wind turbines to turn more rapidly, generating increased energy.
  • A coating that can repel substances, allowing people to wash their cars by simply leaving them out in the rain and airplanes to minimize the build-up of ice while flying.
  • A wall paint that absorbs formaldehyde.

Senior PPG executives attending the event included Michael McGarry, PPG chairman and CEO; David Bem, PPG vice president, science and technology, and chief technology officer; and Jean-Marie Greindl, PPG senior vice president, Architectural Coatings, and president, Europe, Middle East and Africa. The summit was held in conjunction with the PPG-sponsored Omega European Masters golf competition in Crans-Montana, Switzerland.

“This summit provides us with an important opportunity to showcase how PPG is operating at the cusp of technology, arriving at solutions that will have an impact on everything from aerospace to automotive, packaging to architecture, not just for the next year but the next 20 years,” said Bem. “Our innovations are underpinned by PPG’s universal objective to protect and beautify the world – enhancing the environment, improving quality of life and delivering products that address the unmet needs of our customers.”