Life Alfio
For sustainable future
Alina Life Formulations in Open-Source Platform
Implementation time: 01/07/2018 – 30/06/2022 LIFE17 ENV/LV/000318
LIFE ALFIO: the overall objective of this project is to reduce the impact of toxic chemicals on the environment and human health by reducing toxic biocides and VOCs in paint and coating formulations with a safe, sustainable and novel organoclay-based material.
About project
The project team will provide a set of tools for the paint and coating industry to substitute toxic chemicals with safer and greener material. The novel approach of public online platform, where paint formulations are published, providing the ability for the industry and the stakeholders to trace components, will increase knowledge and facilitate transparency in product value chains.
Project partners
Project funders
Target No. 1
Paint formulations
To pilot the use of organoclay component in 16 eco-friendly, reduced VOC and biocide free paint and coating formulations as a transferable solution for paint and coating industry. Respecting the EU targets for reduction of VOCs, all formulations will be Ecolabel compliant, reducing the use of VOCs from 50 to 10 g/L.
Target No. 2
Organoclay production
To pilot the organoclay production technology by creating a prototype for manufacturing the product with the industrial capacity. The aim is being able to produce sufficient organoclay - at least 120 t/year - for the industrial production of paints and coatings as soon as companies start using new formulations.
Target No. 3
Public access
To promote and to make easily transferable options for diminishing VOCs and biocides by developing an online platform for: 1) paint formulation publishing; 2) transparency and traceability of paint and coating components; 3) industry communication.
Online platform with 16 Ecolabel compliant paint and coating formulations with reduced or no biocides and VOCs less than 10g/L.
16 000 L pilot batch of paints and coatings with new formulations produced during the project.
25 letters of acknowledgments for co-creation projects from paint and coating producers.
During the project, audience of 500 companies and 130 000 people reached.
400 000 L of new paints and coatings produced by industry using the new formulations.
3.46 t of biocides substituted and VOCs reduced by 16 640 kg during the project.
Activities
A. Preparatory actions.
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A1 Potential costumers' and stakeholder in-depth qualitative survey.
Action is completed. The main goal of this action was to perform In-depth qualitative interviews with at least 15 international paint and coating industry key players, targeting management level in order to shape the process of sustainable formulation development in accordance to the industry needs and to improve replication and transferability, business planning and communication activities, therefore saving costs and adjusting strategies. The result of this action is “Conclusion report”.
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A2 Technical specification and validation guidelines.
Action is completed. The project team has completed development of validation guidelines. The document is available here. All formulations developed in the project are subject to these guidelines and are validated accordingly. The project team has completed development of technical specifications of 16 new paint formulations in accordance to Ecolabel requirements (regulation 2014/312/ES), industry needs and future regulatory tendencies to achieve the project objective. The document is available here.
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A3 Environment permissions.
Action is in progress.The company where the project rents the premises for prototype has submitted all the documents in order to receive amendments for the existing Category B polluting activity permit. As soon as the permit will be updated LIFE-ALFIO will start production of organoclay.
B. Implementation actions.
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B1 Development of 16 new paint formulations.
Action is in progress. Project team (University of Latvia and Riga Technical University) in cooperation with expert team continues the work on new paint formulation development. So far more than 20 formulations are developed and submitted for validation by the mid- January 2021. Eighteen formulations have passed the first two phases of the validation and have entered the 3rd phase. We plan that all 16 formulations will be ready for Ecolabel certification by November 2021.
B1.1. Paint formulation development.
B1.2. Paint formulation validation.
B1.3 Formulation tests for certification. -
B2 Paint and coating exhibit batch production.
Action is not due to be started yet. Industrial scale, 16 formulation exhibit batch of 1000 l.
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B3 Organoclay production technology prototype.
Action is in progress. Technology prototype with organoclay production capacity 120t/year arrived in December 2020. Project staff tested the prototype at idle in January 2021. Since it was working very well, engineer proceeded with the test batch production. The results were very satisfying and the prototype is ready for work. As soon as the action A.3 will be completed, we will start production of organoclay.
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B4 Business plan.
Action is in progress. During the first year of project we developed draft business model canvas, and developed and validated viable financial model. In the fall of 2020, we started the work on calculations for cost of goods manufactured and by the end of this reporting period, we have finalized business model canvas and now have its final version.
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B5 Replicability and transferability (R&T) activities.
Action is in progress. Starting the implementation of the activity replicability and transferability manager elaborated Replicability and transferability plan. As the online-platform is the core element of the R&T plan, marketing and communication specialist in cooperation with online-platform IT specialist elaborated the technical specification for the platform and defined the requirements for the potential online-platform IT developers. It is planned, that the work on online-platform development will start in March 2021.
B5.1 Replicability and transferability (R&T) plan development.
Action is completed. Includes on-line platform, paint formulation and organoclay technology activities onwards transferability and replicability in paint and coating industries. The result of this action is “R&T plan”.
B5.2 Paint formulation online-platform development.
Online data-base access will be available 24/7, providing information about paint formulations and raw materials.
B5.3 Promotional content development, distribution and continuous update.
Content development for the platform and users, publication of formulations and all related documents, platform end-users data management & update, technical and customer support.
C. Monitoring of the impact of the project actions.
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C1 Assessment of socio-economic impact.
Action is not due to be started yet. Socio-economic impact assessment of the project actions on the local economy and population will be carried out.
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C2 Project performance monitoring.
Action is in progress. Project manager elaborated the project performance monitoring methodology. This monitoring will help us to monitor whether and to what extent we are achieving the project’s goals and KPI indicators. The documents is awailable here.
D. Public awareness and dissemination of results.
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D1 Information and awareness raising activities for general public.
Action is in progress. We started the action with development of project web page www.lifealfio.com. It was launched in June 2020. Now it is awailable in both Eglish and Latvian languages. We have also developed notice boards and set them in all project implementation locations. During the 2020 we elaborated the Communication Plan. It outlines the project communication goals, describes the main target audiences, provides the communication strategy framework, analyses communication risks and provides the timeline. The project staff member participated in LIFE Platform meeting on chemicals and Indicator workshop in Vilnius, November 27th – 29th, 2019. Mrs. Solvita Kostjukova gave a presentation on Reduction of biocides from paints.
D1.1. General dissemination activities.
D1.2. Participation in LIFE networking events.
D1.3 Videos (Videos about the project). First introduction video about the project was shown in public television and published in social platforms, available here.
D1.4 Communication strategy development, what is available in Communication Plan. -
D2 Technical dissemination activities for paint and coating industry professionals.
Action is in progress. During the 2020 project’s team started the work on development of information materials, till end of August 2020 we produced three product pages (F50W; T65W; T80O) and two presentations about the project for specific target audiences. As work continued on paint formulations, the we created an incompatibility one-pager for industry.
D2.1. Info materials for networking and conferences and meetings.
D2.2. Publications in industry magazines.
D2.3 Internet marketing campaign.
D2.4. Participation in 3 industry conferences and shows.
D2.5. Conference/panel discussion about biocide and VOC free challenges and solutions.
D2.6 VIsiting and networking in industry conferences and shows.
E. Project management.
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E1 Overall project management.
Action is in progress. The project is implemented by three partners – Ltd. ALINA (Coordinating beneficiary), University of Latvia (Associated beneficiary) and Riga Technical University (Associated beneficiary). All partners have signed the partnership agreements in 2020 and established highly competent project teams. There have been 2 monitor visits so far – one in June of 2019 and the second one in 2020.
E1.1 Project Management by ALINA.
E1.2 Project Management by Riga Technical University.
E1.3 Project Management by University of Latvia.
E1.4 Steering Committee. First and second Steering Committee meeting was held as well as workshop with invited industry experts for development of recommendations for more sustainable Green Public Procurement (GPP) in Latvia in the nearest future.
E1.5 Formulation development supervision Expert Team creation.
E1.6 Project procurements.
E1.7 Project external audit. -
E2 After-LIFE plan.
Action is not due to be started yet. After LIFE plan will include a comprehensive exploitation plan, strategy for maintaining project results through commercialisation and industrialization of the proposed solutions after the end of project.