Marco Agustín Secchi is an Argentine Industrial Engineering student who has created a coating capable of turning any wall into a magnetic surface. He called him Ironplacand basically works as if it were a regular plaster, but with the particularity that it allows objects to be fixed directly to the wall with magnets, without having to drill holes. The idea is quite interesting, and below these lines we tell you all the details.
What is Ironplac and how does it work?. Why do you have to drill holes in the wall every time you want to hang something? That question was what Secchi himself asked himself and was in fact the starting point of this project. According to counted the 29-year-old young man told the Argentine media La Nación, the material is presented in powder form, mixed with water and applied to the wall as if it were a conventional fine plaster, that is, the mixture that is applied to walls to cover them at the end of a work.
According to what he says, once dry, the surface is prepared to attract magnets. The trick is that the mixture incorporates a formulation with mineral and ferrous fillers that convert the coating into a passive ferromagnetic surface. Secchi explains that the mixture does not emit any magnetic field on its own, but responds to magnets that are brought close to it. The user only needs to stick a magnet to the object they want to hang (be it a painting, a knife, a tool, etc.) and place it on the wall. Secchi assures having already tried tools, panels, small boards and even a shovel.
An idea with a more practical use. Incorporating ferromagnetic particles into mortars or cements is not unknown in materials research. Normally have been explored this type of composites for applications such as radiation shielding or the improvement of mechanical properties. But the Ironplac skips all that to give it a much more practical approach: hanging things on a wall without the need for holes. And of course, on the other hand, it must be said that we love magnets.
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What is not yet resolved. The project is in an advanced stage of development, with functional prototypes and demos installed in real construction sites, but it is not yet commercialized. Aspects remain to be demonstrated, such as how much weight it can withstand in the long term, how it is applied to construction regulations and whether the cost will be competitive enough with other types of solutions such as metal panels or magnetic strips to make it viable to scale it to an industrial level.
According to share In the middle, the patents are pending and Secchi acknowledges that he is currently working on finding financing and investors to scale production.
Where do you want to go? The young inventor is clear about the type of spaces where he sees the most potential: workshops, classrooms, laboratories, kindergartens, offices. Places where the ability to rearrange space without damaging walls has real practical value. “I’m interested in understanding what it takes for an idea to work in the real world and be sustained over time,” declared Secchi.
According to share The young man, Ironplac does not aspire to be a closed product, but rather “a construction platform capable of evolving and integrating with different materials.” We will see if it finds financing to scale the project. At the moment we know that the idea is quite attractive, especially because of being able to stick anything to the wall (as long as the element is accompanied by a small magnetic piece).
Cover image | Marco Agustín Secchi
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