Nanize Blog / Technology Deep Dive
Why Catalyst Free Curing Is Harder Than It Sounds. And Why It Changes Everything for Manufacturers.
July 2026 | 7 min read
Dr. Kingsley Iwu, CTO and co founder of Nanize, in the Narvik laboratory where the polysilazane curing technology was developed.
The coating cures in under 60 seconds at below 100 degrees Celsius. No catalyst added. That sentence appears on the Nanize technology page and tends to get read quickly, nodded at, and moved past. It should not be moved past.
Catalyst free curing at sub 100 degree temperatures in under a minute is not a minor process refinement. For anyone who has worked with polysilazane coatings before, it is the sentence that stops them cold. Here is why.
What Polysilazane Actually Needs to Cure
Polysilazane is a silicon nitrogen based polymer. In its uncured state it is a liquid or semi liquid that can be applied to surfaces by standard coating methods: spray, roll, slot die. Once applied, the curing process converts it from that liquid state into a hard, dense, ceramic like solid through a chemical reaction called crosslinking.
Crosslinking works by forming bonds between individual polymer chains, turning a loose network of separate molecules into a tightly interlocked three dimensional structure. The denser that network, the harder, more chemically resistant, and more durable the final coating. This is not a new concept in coatings chemistry. What is new is achieving it at temperatures and speeds that production lines can actually use.
The problem with polysilazane is that the crosslinking reaction is thermally demanding. The Si N bonds in uncured polysilazane need energy to convert to the Si O bonds that form the crosslinked network. Conventionally, that energy comes from heat. Significant heat. Most polysilazane curing processes on the market require temperatures between 200 and 400 degrees Celsius, held for minutes to hours, to achieve full crosslinking. This works fine for coating glass or ceramic substrates. It excludes virtually every thermoplastic, every OLED panel, every TPU film, and most of the polymer substrates that manufacturers most need to protect.
The alternative, used by some formulations, is to add a catalyst. A catalyst lowers the activation energy of the crosslinking reaction, allowing it to proceed at lower temperatures. This works, but introduces complexity: catalysts need to be sourced separately, added in precise amounts, stored under specific conditions, and managed for their own regulatory and safety profiles. Some catalyst residues create concerns in food contact or medical applications. Some affect the final surface chemistry in ways that require additional process steps to correct.
High performance industrial applications demand coatings that cure completely and bond permanently. Partial crosslinking is not a smaller version of the same outcome; it is a qualitatively different one.
What Nanize Did Differently
“It’s all in the chemistry.”
Dr. Kingsley Iwu, CTO, Nanize
The specific formulation is patent protected, so the mechanism details are not public. What is verifiable, through the FTIR data Nanize has published across more than 20,000 test samples, is what the chemistry achieves: full crosslinking in under 60 seconds at below 100 degrees Celsius, with no catalyst added.
FTIR stands for Fourier transform Infrared Spectroscopy. It works by measuring how a material absorbs infrared light at different wavelengths. Each type of chemical bond absorbs at a characteristic frequency, producing a spectral fingerprint. For polysilazane coatings specifically, FTIR tracks the conversion of Si N bonds in the uncured polymer to Si O bonds formed as crosslinking occurs. A fully cured coating shows complete conversion. A partially cured one shows residual Si N peaks in the spectrum.
Nanize’s published FTIR comparisons show uncured polysilazane alongside Nanize cured samples on aluminium and steel substrates. The cured samples show the spectral signature of full crosslinking. The process conditions: below 100 degrees Celsius, under 60 seconds, no catalyst. The data is a spectral measurement, not a marketing claim.
Nanize coatings contain no PFAS or fluorinated chemistry of any kind, validated across more than 20,000 FTIR test samples.
Twenty thousand samples is worth pausing on. A single FTIR test confirms one sample at one point in time. Twenty thousand samples across different substrates, application conditions, and production runs confirms that the result is consistent and repeatable, not a laboratory best case achieved once under controlled conditions.
What This Means on a Production Line
The practical consequences of catalyst free, sub 100 degree curing are significant enough to work through specifically.
Substrate compatibility. High temperature curing processes are self limiting: they can only be used on substrates that tolerate the required temperatures. OLED panels begin to degrade above specific thermal thresholds. TPU films, used extensively in automotive paint protection wraps and consumer electronics, have limited thermal tolerance. Polycarbonate lenses and optical substrates warp under heat. The Nanize process opens all of these substrates to high performance polysilazane coatings. The coating can be applied to the material rather than working around it.
Headlamp covers, LIDAR sensor windows, and TPU paint protection films all require coatings that cure below 70°C. Nanize is the only polysilazane process that achieves full crosslinking at those temperatures without a catalyst.
Energy cost. Traditional ceramic non stick coatings for cookware cure at temperatures above 400 degrees Celsius. Running the ovens required for this across a production run of tens of thousands of pans per day carries significant energy costs. Nanize coatings cure below 100 degrees. The energy reduction is up to 90% versus high temperature ceramic curing processes. For a facility running multiple shifts, that reduction accumulates into a substantial operating cost difference per year.
Cookware manufacturers using ceramic non stick coatings cure above 400°C for extended periods. Nanize cures the same substrate below 100°C in under 60 seconds, an energy reduction of up to 90%.
Throughput. Curing time directly limits how much product a line can process per shift. A coating that requires five minutes in a curing oven means the line can only coat as much product as fits in five minutes of oven capacity. A coating that cures in under 60 seconds on the same equipment means the line can process five to six times as much product in the same window, assuming application speed is not the bottleneck. This arithmetic compounds into a production economics argument that matters at scale.
Process simplicity. No catalyst means one fewer input to manage. The formulation arrives, is applied, and cures. There is no separate catalyst purchasing, storage, or dosing step. There is no catalyst residue to account for in downstream processing. For food contact applications specifically, this simplification carries regulatory weight: fewer inputs means fewer migration pathways to validate under FDA compliance requirements.
What Full Crosslinking Delivers at the Surface
Dr. Iwu emphasises full crosslinking because partial crosslinking is not a smaller version of the same outcome. It is a qualitatively different one.
A densely crosslinked polysilazane network is hard in a ceramic sense. The surface resists scratching, abrasion, and mechanical wear at a level that loosely crosslinked polymer coatings do not. The covalent bond formed to the substrate during curing means the coating does not sit on top of the surface as a separate layer that can peel or delaminate. It is chemically integrated with the substrate at the molecular level.
This distinction matters most in long service applications. A coating that begins to peel at six months is a maintenance problem. A coating that is covalently bonded to the substrate and densely crosslinked does not peel on the same timeline. The service life extends, replacement frequency decreases, and the per unit cost of surface protection over the product’s working life falls accordingly.
The surface energy produced by full crosslinking is extremely low. Low surface energy is the molecular basis of non stick and anti soiling performance: water, oil, and contaminants cannot spread and adhere to a surface that chemically resists them. This is also why Nanize coated surfaces produce lower friction than Teflon on measured testing. The dense Si O surface network is smoother at the molecular level than PTFE, and the covalent substrate bond means there is no interfacial layer for contaminants to work underneath.
In high speed automated manufacturing, a covalently bonded, densely crosslinked coating reduces friction at every contact point: fewer jams, lower motor loads, longer component service intervals.
The Question Manufacturers Should Be Asking
The PFAS phase out has created a search for replacements running for several years. The challenge slowing adoption of most alternatives is the performance gap: PFAS coatings work very well, and most replacements require accepting worse non stick performance, slower curing, higher temperatures, or added process complexity in exchange for compliance.
The Nanize case is built on the argument that none of those trade offs apply here. The FTIR data validates the curing claim. The friction data validates the performance claim. The substrate compatibility follows from the low temperature process. FDA compliance for food contact is documented.
The question for manufacturers facing PFAS compliance timelines is not whether a PFAS free alternative can perform adequately. It is which alternative fits their specific substrates, their production line parameters, and their curing energy budget, and whether the validation data behind it is solid enough to stake a qualification process on.
The data is on the technology page. The team in Narvik is available to discuss how it applies to your specific situation.
Explore the full technology detail at nanize.com
Paul George Savluc
Business Development, Marketing, Software, AI and more.
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