© Münsterland e.V./Philipp Fölting
BASF Coatings GmbH: Award winner 2023/24
Category "Economy"
With the innovation "NovaFlex SharkSkin", BASF Coatings GmbH from Münster has developed a self-adhesive artificial sharkskin film for aircraft. The special surface structure of the filmreduces the frictional resistance of the aircraft and thus leads to reduced paraffin consumption and CO2 emissions.
With this thoroughly ground-breaking development, BASF Coatings GmbH won the Münsterland 2023/24 Innovation Award in the "Business" category.
The breakthrough for a development
What are the actual advantages of shark skin? Thanks to the special grooved structure on its skin scales, the shark reduces drag when swimming. The idea of transferring the special advantages of sharkskin to the surfaces of aircraft has been around since the 1980s. However, the fact that the outer surface of an aircraft is exposed to considerable stress (extreme changes in temperature and climate, extremely high UV radiation) has long stood in the way of research. It often takes years or even decades for a development to achieve a breakthrough.
This has now been achieved: BASF Coatings GmbH has managed to replicate the advantages of sharkskin with a newly developed technology and can therefore produce the self-adhesive artificial sharkskin film on an industrial scale.
The "NovaFlex SharkSkin" is currently being applied to the fuselage; in future, the entire aircraft is to be fitted with the film. And the Boeing 777, currently the only aircraft type approved for this purpose, is just the beginning. Wherever flow resistance needs to be reduced, the use of artificial sharkskin makes sense. For example, in industrial shipping or wind turbines: appropriately processed rotor blades would move much more efficiently and aerodynamically. Let's see what else artificial sharkskin will be good for in the future ...
