Covestro to Launch Automated Laboratory for Coating and Adhesive Formulation Development

Covestro is set to open a state-of-the-art automated lab in 2025 to optimize coating and adhesive formulations. With a focus on digitalization, circular materials, and customer-specific testing, the lab aims to run tens of thousands of tests annually—24/7, driven by AI and smart robotics.

Manufacturers of coatings and adhesives face growing pressure to innovate quickly, improve efficiency, and meet sustainability and regulatory standards. A key success factor: the right binders and crosslinkers. To support this, Covestro will open a fully automated laboratory in 2025 dedicated to developing and optimizing formulations.

"With our automated laboratory, we can work together with our customers on the future of coatings and adhesives. Because it operates almost completely autonomously and learns from our existing knowledge and data lake as well as newly generated data, it makes the process of optimizing and developing formulations many times more efficient and precise," says Thomas Büsgen, head of the laboratory. "This allows us to optimize existing formulations faster or even develop completely new formulations for and together with our customers. We can say: We are reaching a new level of modern research."

The lab will focus on formulations based on Covestro’s binders and crosslinkers—key components for ensuring desired material properties such as hardness, adhesion, gloss, or durability. These formulations typically consist of 7 to 15 ingredients, resulting in a vast number of combinations. The use of computer-aided design and automation now makes it possible to run extensive test series efficiently.

"Our new automated laboratory gives us more possibilities for testing formulations. It relieves our specialized laboratories of their standard tasks and can analyze samples more systematically," explains Martin Merkens, Head of Sales & Market Development EMLA in Covestro's Coatings and Adhesives business entity. "This will particularly help us in the area of circular economy: Alternative raw materials, for example bio-based or recycled materials, can be tested faster and evaluated for their properties in the final product."

• 24/7 operation with automated workflows
• Tens of thousands of tests annually
• Integration of water- and solvent-based 1K and 2K systems
• Climate-controlled testing environments
• AI-supported design and validation of test series
• Connection to specialized labs for extended testing