A REACH Compliant, Chromate-Free Primer

SolarPrime is ENBIO’s REACH-compliant chromate-free primer, specially designed to meet the challenging performance and regulatory needs of the aeronautic and aerospace industries.

The European Space Sector is facing an imminent crisis. Metal adhesive bonding is a critical process for fabricating satellites and it relies heavily on a toxic metal priming process called chromate conversion coating. Environmental legislation (REACH) will prevent the use of the commonly used chromate conversion coatings due to their hazardous nature with sunset dates in 2017 and 2019 for corrosion and primer treatments respectively. Potential replacements may only give a short reprieve from regulation restriction as they are all based on a wet-chemistry approach that is fundamentally tied to the use of aggressive chemicals. Although not currently under REACH regulation, these chemicals are listed as substances of very high concern (SVHC).

The SolarPrime primer uses ENBIO’s patented CoBlast process as a new surface adhesion primer solution. It uses no hazardous chemicals and meets or exceeds existing industry standard performance. CoBlast is already used by ENBIO to apply a qualified thermal control coating for the European Space Agency for spacecraft. The process is highly flexible and can be altered to apply an adhesive primer to replace chromate conversion. The CoBlast adhesive priming process has already passed testing in the automotive sector and is at TRL 9 for space applications.