Sparc Technologies has announced that Petro Vietnam Paint will incorporate its ecosparc graphene additive into the company’s PERAPHENE range of steel protective coatings, targeting use in highly corrosive environments.
Petro Vietnam Paint’s decision follows both in‑house testing and third‑party validation, which reportedly showed improved anti‑corrosion performance compared to other graphene materials currently evaluated. The ecosparc‑enhanced PERAPHENE products are expected to become commercially available later this year for applications in marine, offshore, industrial and infrastructure markets.
Sparc's managing director, Nick O’Loughlin, said the move represents an important step towards broader global adoption of ecosparc in protective coating applications. According to O’Loughlin, the decision by Petro Vietnam Paint to integrate ecosparc into an existing commercial product line demonstrates growing momentum behind the use of graphene additives to improve the performance and longevity of steel protective coatings, and further supports Sparc’s positioning in the graphene‑enhanced coatings space.
Petro Vietnam's Paint director, Vũ Duy Cường, noted that the company has been evaluating graphene materials from multiple global suppliers to optimize the performance and cost effectiveness of its PERAPHENE systems. The company is continuing to test ecosparc‑containing coating systems under even more demanding service conditions, with the aim of delivering equal or improved performance at lower dry film thicknesses than current products designed for the same applications. Based on testing to date, Petro Vietnam Paint believes ecosparc can meet the stringent performance requirements of its PERAPHENE‑branded protective coatings for highly corrosive environments.
The announcement builds on Sparc’s broader ecosparc commercialization efforts. The company has spent more than six years developing the additive for use in protective coatings, aiming to improve reliability, longevity, safety and lifecycle cost for critical steel infrastructure. Recently, Sparc also secured a commercial pathway with AkzoNobel, which has begun offering an ecosparc‑enhanced version of its heavy‑duty Interzone 954 protective coating in Australia on a made‑to‑order basis. Interzone 954 is used in offshore oil and gas, offshore wind, marine and petrochemical applications, so its enhancement with a graphene additive is seen as a notable validation step for Sparc’s technology.
