Reducing the environmental impact of

paint and coating removal of marine

vessels

Ioannis Metsios, PhD, CEng, PMP

Operations Manager
Powerlase Photonics Ltd

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 Powerlase Photonics Ltd
New Facilities
14,724 ft² manufacturing
facility
- 2,900 ft2 Production clean rooms
- 1800 ft2 R&D labs

Nearby
London Gatwick Airport, UK

HQ

Michigan

Orlando

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 Company Highlights
Year Event
2000 Company founded using advanced technology developed with Imperial College London

2009 Powerlase Ltd Acquired by EO Technics Co, Ltd – Renamed as Powerlase Photonics Ltd

2011 Released Short Pulse AO10SP (1.2kW), AO16 (1.6kW) and AO24 (2.4kW) Laser system
Production shipments of AO series to LCD production line in China
2012 Released modular scalable control system – UCS
2013 New CI, website and corporate rebranding
Releases: Victory family product – Polaris i200, Procyon g1600, 80 W 355 nm laser
2014 Releases Polaris i100, Rigel u180
New Generation of high power IR lasers, Rigel i800, i1200 & i1600
2015 Establishment of the Tailored Blank Ablation product
Powerlase Photonics Inc Opens in Novi, Michigan Area, USA
2016 Powerlase Photonics Holdings Acquires Powerlase Photonics Ltd.
and Powerlase Photonics Inc.
PPI opens office in Florida, Coating removal processing head demonstrator released

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 Current Laser Product Line

Powerlase Photonics is an
innovative market
leader in high power,
400 W 200 W
pulsed, DPSS lasers for 800 W 400 W
80 W
high productivity industrial 1.2 kW 800 W
180 W
1.6 kW 1.6 kW
processes and 3.2 kW 2.0 kW
applications.

3 Product families
• Rigel (ns, multi mode)
• Polaris (ps, single mode) 100 W 60 W
70 W
• Procyon (2,000 W, green) 200 W 120 W

More coming up soon !

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 Paint removal of marine vessels

Complete paint removal and re-paint necessary for every active vessel
is necessary every 2 to 5 years, depending on route and duty.

Typical case study:

Panamax
225 x 32 x 13m + 10m Turret
(surface of 19 000 m2)

Requires:
4 sandblasting cranes to work
in parallel for 2 to 3 days

Cost: ~ £100k

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 De-painting Today =
Toxic Waste Generation

Solvent
Media Blast 9.1 pds
Laser Ablation
Solid
4.1 pds waste* 0.5 pds
Solid Solid
De-painting produces: waste**
waste*
1 lb of paint

+ 165 pds
Liquid waste

* Potential Alternative Report for the Portable Handheld Laser Small Area Supplemental Coating Removal System,
Prepared for USAF by SAIC, Feb 2001
** Penn State Applied Research Laboratory, Automated Rotor Blade Stripping System (ARBSS) study for the USN, 2005
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 Paint removal methods
comparison

  Favorable  Acceptable Moderate Poor  Unfavorable

         
Xenon
High pressure
Approach è ê Diode Pumped flashlamp with Methylene
CO2 Pellet water jet Sandblasting
Characteristics YAG Laser Chloride
32,000 psi
blasting
Special Facility
Banning under
Environmental Very Low Low Necessary Moderate
consideration
Constraints
Multi-Coating Layer
High Low Very Poor Poor Poor
Sensitivity
Adaptable to Variety
Excellent Good Moderate Moderate Poor
of Substrates

Paint Stripping Rate Moderate Moderate Very High High Moderate

Low – Metals
Substrate Intrusion
None Moderate Low Moderate High -
Potential
Polymers
Total Waste Volume Very Low Low Very High Very High High

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High Power Lasers: A solution
for Marine Vessel Paint Removal?
Powerlase Photonics enables environmentally friendly cost
effective application by high power, high energy nanosecond
pulsed lasers

Laser Depainting for Marine Vessels

YES
 Eliminates tons of contaminated waste

 De-painting rate 0.5m2/min, Goal >1m2/min

 No damage on the substrate with selective stripping

 At the cost of less than £14/m2, Goal <£6/m2

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 Historical Paint Removal
Systems (1)

Ream, EWI (2010)

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Laser Power to achieve
R=1m2/min (2)
Laser Power vs. Cleaning Rate
10J/cm2 30J/cm2 60J/cm2 100J/cm2
100000
LASER AVERAGE POWER (W)

10000

Powerlase
Rigel series
1000
Current
Pulsed lasers
100

10
100 200 500 1000 2000 5000 10000
CLEANING RATE (CM2/ MIN)

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 Rigel Integrated Laser Enclosure
Modular Laser Cavity (IR)

Output power options

800 W
1200 W
1600 W

Fibre beam
delivery

Upgrades add
Power and pulse 400 W or 800 W
monitoring amplifier modules

Power control 800 W pulsed

oscillator

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 De-painting Laser
Smart hand-held tool.

For fast coating and paint removal

applications

Ready to use with average power of

800W, 1200W & 1600W.
(Highest average power offered in
the global market for paint removal)

Lower and higher power ratings can

be provided as custom system.

The main unit delivers to the tool:

oLaser beam
oElectrical supply and controls
oVacuum extraction
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 Operation and architecture

Single point colour detection

Optics signal Sensor signal

interface interface

Closed loop
control system

Sample
Optical train
Laser

Beam delivery Processing Head

fibre

Vacuum
extractor and Extraction of ablation products
filtration
system

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 Smart hand held tool functions
Colour sensor

Process
indicator lights

Vacuum
extraction

Control
signals

Interlock
Fibre keys
input

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Laser De-painting
Thin coated

50 µm thick paint
Ablated by scanned
NIR beam, 650 W
De-paint rate 3.8min/m²

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Laser De-painting
Thick coated

350 µm thick paint

Ablated by scanned
NIR beam, 950 W
De-paint rate 3.6min/m²

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 Removal rate data

Area removal rate

0.7

0.6
Area removal rate (m²/min)

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Power at sample

Green Panel White Panel

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Laser De-painting
coating selectivity

Multiple layers of automotive paint

+primer

Ablated by scanned
NIR beam, 650 W

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 Questions

?
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