German coating machinery manufacturer providing roll-to-roll pilot line equipment for organic electronics, printed sensors, and nano-functionalized surfaces.
Coatema is a German machinery manufacturer specializing in coating and printing equipment for flexible substrates — films, papers, and foils. In H2020 projects, they provide roll-to-roll processing equipment and pilot line infrastructure for producing organic electronics such as OLEDs, organic photovoltaics, and printed sensors. Their core contribution is translating lab-scale coating and deposition processes into industrially viable, continuous manufacturing lines. Based in Dormagen (North Rhine-Westphalia), they serve as the scale-up machinery partner that bridges the gap between research prototypes and volume production.
All five projects involve scaling coating/printing processes to pilot or production lines, from OLED fabrication (PI-SCALE, OLEDSOLAR) to nano-functionalized surfaces (FlexFunction2Sustain).
PI-SCALE (flexible OLEDs), OLEDSOLAR (OLED and thin film solar), RealNano (organic printed electronics with in-line monitoring), and FlexFunction2Sustain all target organic electronics scale-up.
RealNano focuses on real-time nano-characterization for high-yield manufacturing; OLEDSOLAR includes in-line monitoring techniques for thin-film production.
GREENSENSE developed a nanocellulose-based printed biosensing platform; FlexFunction2Sustain works on nano-functionalized paper and plastic surfaces.
FlexFunction2Sustain — their largest project (EUR 1.35M) — explicitly addresses sustainability, recycling, bio-degradability, and permeation barriers for packaging.
In their early H2020 period (2016–2018), Coatema focused on organic light-emitting technologies — flexible OLEDs for lighting, displays, and automotive applications — and entered the biosensor space with printed nanocellulose platforms. From 2020 onward, their work shifted toward in-line process monitoring, nano-characterization for yield optimization, and sustainable nano-functionalized surfaces including packaging and recycling applications. The trajectory shows a company moving from "we can coat and print organic electronics" to "we can coat, monitor quality in real time, and do it sustainably."
Coatema is expanding from pure electronics manufacturing equipment toward sustainable materials processing with integrated quality monitoring — a strong fit for Green Deal and circular economy consortia.
Coatema participates exclusively as a partner, never as coordinator — consistent with their role as a specialized equipment provider that supports research-driven consortia rather than leading them. With 68 unique partners across 18 countries in just 5 projects, they work in large, multi-national consortia (averaging 14+ partners per project). This makes them an experienced, low-friction consortium member who understands multi-partner dynamics and delivers defined equipment/infrastructure contributions without administrative overhead.
Coatema has built a broad European network of 68 unique partners across 18 countries through five projects, indicating they are well-connected in the organic electronics and advanced manufacturing ecosystem. Their network spans research institutions, material suppliers, and end-user industries across most of Western and Central Europe.
Coatema occupies a specific niche: they are a machinery company, not a research lab or materials supplier. When a consortium needs to prove that a new coating, printing, or deposition process can work at industrial scale on a continuous roll-to-roll line, Coatema provides the equipment and process engineering to make that happen. This makes them a critical "last mile" partner for any project that needs to move from batch-scale demonstration to continuous manufacturing — a recurring gap in Horizon projects aiming for high TRL outcomes.
