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The FreeMe project reached a significant milestone with its final event at the COATINGS 2026, where its results, innovations, and collaborative achievements were showcased within a highly engaging international environment.
A special acknowledgment was dedicated to FreeMe’s partners, whose continuous commitment, expertise, and collaborative spirit proved fundamental to the project’s success. Their work across research, industrial validation, and innovation development delivered tangible results that advanced safer and more sustainable metallisation processes. The strong interdisciplinary cooperation not only strengthened the project outcomes but also ensured their relevance and applicability to real industrial challenges.
Throughout the conference, dissemination activities played a key role in increasing the project’s visibility. The booth of EXELISIS IKE, the partner responsible for FreeMe’s dissemination and communication activities, featured a wide range of project materials available to participants. The booth attracted significant interest, with many visitors engaging in discussions to learn more about the project, its Decision Support Tool, and the impact its innovations can have on the surface finishing industry.
Session 10, dedicated to phasing out substances of concern from the surface finishing industry, brought together several impactful contributions from FreeMe partners. Michalis Kartsinis from Creative Nano presented advancements in Cr(VI)- and Pd-free metallisation of plastics, while Luca Magagnin from the Politecnico di Milano showcased self-activating sprayable resins enabling more sustainable plating solutions. Alexandros Zoikis-Karathanasis contributed with a comprehensive presentation on eco-conscious nickel-based nanocomposites as alternatives to hard chromium, covering aspects from chemistry and equipment upgrades to Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design process engineering and innovation assessment.
In Session 9 on AI tools and simulations, Kostas Pyrgakis delivered a standout presentation on the POPEYE framework (Plating On Plastics Equation-based sYstems Engineering). His talk, focusing on unit operations and predictive models for emerging plating on plastics technologies, stood out for its depth, clarity, and forward-looking approach, offering a comprehensive vision of how advanced modelling and systems engineering can transform next-generation metallisation processes. Alongside him, Francisco Daniel García Romero from IDENER.AI presented a sophisticated multiscale modelling framework addressing adhesion, etching, and nickel deposition in Cr(VI)-free metallisation of polymers, further demonstrating the project’s cutting-edge approach to sustainable innovation.
Overall, FreeMe’s presence at COATINGS 2026 highlighted not only the project’s technical excellence but also the strength of its partnership and its clear impact on advancing sustainable surface engineering. The event served as a powerful conclusion to the project’s journey, demonstrating how collaborative research can deliver innovative, practical, and industry-relevant solutions while setting the foundation for future developments.
