Eric Pieters News

Micanti has won the Dutch Chamber of Commerce’s SME Innovation Top 100 Award. The Dutch maritime technology company Micanti has won the award for its design of a 100% environmentally friendly antifouling foil. Its working is based on small fibers, which make it very unattractive for organisms to attach to the hull of a ship. The innovative nature of this invention and the successful launch of it within the global professional shipping industry has provided Micanti with the title of the SME Innovation Top 100. The SME Innovation Top 100 is the biggest and most prestigious innovation award of The Netherlands. The so-called Thorn-D foil was developed by Micanti’s founder Dr. Ir. Rik Breur.

Port of Amsterdam starts with sustainable film on patrol vessel. Damen Shipyards (Gorinchem, Netherlands) and the Port of Amsterdam are launching a pilot project  to test Thorn-D, a relatively new antifouling film that is applied to ships’ hulls below the water line. The film has an expected lifetime of five years. That is much longer than conventional antifouling coatings, which need to be replaced every six months on average. Dr Rik Breur, the founder of supplier Micanti, developed the film and tested it extensively on trial surfaces and work vessels.