About Oberfläche

Oberfläche

Oberfläche is the digital magazine for industrial surface technology, published on the German-language portal oberflaeche.de and its English-language sister portal Surface Technology Online. Since 2022 it has published specialist information on industrial surface technology exclusively through digital channels — daily news, technical articles, directories and reference content on painting, coating, parts cleaning, electroplating, drying, hardening, machining, corrosion protection and plasma surface technology. Its target group is the specialists and managers from all industrial sectors who deal with surface technology as a cross-sectional discipline.

Overview

Oberfläche is a digital-only specialist magazine for industrial surface technology — "das digitale Magazin für Industrielle Oberflächen-Technik." The German portal oberflaeche.de carries the top stories and surface-technology news; the English portal Surface Technology Online serves the international audience. The publication relies consistently on digital distribution without print: daily news items, specialist articles, directories and more on the full spectrum of topics — painting and coating, parts cleaning, electroplating, drying, hardening, mechanical processing, corrosion protection and plasma surface technology. The front page leads with a top story — in October 2026, for example, an analysis of Germany's shrinking industrial buffer amid low gas-storage levels, Middle East escalations and energy-intensive industries' cost risks — followed by surface-technology news items on companies and products: SensoTech's LiquiSonic inline measurement system for sulphuric-acid concentration monitoring, Trumpf's 2025/26 business figures with a 7 percent order-intake increase to 4.5 billion euros, Verbio's 100-million-euro ethenolysis plant in Bitterfeld-Wolfen, Evatec's new South Korean sales and service company, the Kurt J. Lesker–Penn State joint research centre for atomic-layer processes, and Edwards Vacuum's global cryo portfolio for coating processes. The magazine thus combines industry news with technology reporting for the surface-technology community.

History

Oberfläche-Online has published specialist information on industrial surface technology on its two online portals since 2022, positioning itself from the start as a digital-native title without print. The launch reflected a structural shift in the German surface-technology media landscape: the established print journals — BESSER LACKIEREN, the Journal für Oberflächentechnik (JOT) from Springer, and the Magazin für Oberflächentechnik (mo) — were joined by a purely digital competitor that could publish daily rather than monthly. The German Research Association for Surface Treatment (DFO) lists Oberfläche Online among the specialist media in which it publishes technical contributions, alongside the established print titles — a sign of the digital magazine's acceptance in the professional community within a few years of launch. Supplier companies use the magazine as a publication channel for their technology stories: the Jentner Group, for instance, published an article on its rhodium-recovery process in the digital edition of the surface-technology magazine, presenting the JE 88 Rhodium CLEAN process for recovering rhodium from existing baths as a resource-saving, environmentally friendly innovation. The portal's news flow, with image-dated items from October 2026, documents continuous daily operation.

Coverage and Content

The content programme covers the entire cross-sectional technology of industrial surface treatment. The news section reports on companies, products, research and markets: measurement systems for process monitoring, machine builders' business figures, new chemical plants, international sales organizations, research cooperations and vacuum technology for coating processes. The specialist articles treat the technologies themselves — painting and coating processes, electroplating, parts cleaning, drying and hardening, corrosion protection and plasma surface technology — with the practical orientation of a trade medium. Reference content complements the journalism: the portal carries directories and a surface-technology lexicon explaining technical terms, from low-carbon surfaces (produced by carburizing, nitriding or carbonitriding to improve hardness, strength and corrosion resistance) to current research topics such as micro-perforated 3D-printed suction panels for aviation, where TU Braunschweig's SE2A cluster for sustainable aviation optimized boundary-layer behaviour to reduce air friction and emissions — a successful wind-tunnel test reported as a special topic. The top-story format gives the magazine an editorial voice on the industry's strategic questions, such as the October 2026 analysis of Germany's energy-policy costs for energy-intensive surface-treatment companies. The English-language Surface Technology Online portal extends the coverage to the international surface-technology community.

Organization and Ownership

The publisher behind the two portals is the Oberfläche-Online publishing operation, which the trade-press directory fachzeitungen.de lists as the publisher of the digital magazine; detailed publisher, ownership and editorial-staff information is not publicly confirmed in the sources available. What is documented is the publishing concept: since 2022, specialist information on industrial surface technology on the two online portals "Oberfläche-Online" and "Surface Technology Online," aimed at specialists and managers from all industrial sectors concerned with surface technology, with a consistent focus on digital distribution channels and no print edition. The commercial model is that of a digital B2B specialist medium: advertising and content-marketing placements from the surface-technology supplier industry — plant manufacturers, chemistry suppliers, measurement-technology companies — sold against the precisely defined target group of surface-technology decision-makers. The portal's front page carries sponsor and partner placements (Wenglor, Polytec, Fraunhofer IST and others in the header area), reflecting the supplier industry's presence. Companies such as Jentner use the magazine's article format for technology communication, indicating a native-advertising and technical-PR component alongside classic display advertising.

Digital Presence

The digital presence is the product: oberflaeche.de is the German-language magazine portal and Surface Technology Online its English counterpart, both operated as TYPO3-based news portals with daily updates, image-led news items and topic worlds. The portal structure includes the top story, the surface-technology news stream, special topics and the technical-term lexicon, giving the site the architecture of a full specialist magazine rather than a corporate blog. The lexicon entries illustrate the didactic ambition: the low-carbon surface entry, for example, explains the carbon-reduction processes — carburizing, nitriding, carbonitriding — their effects on weldability, ductility and adaptability, and the industries that use them, from automotive and mechanical engineering to toolmaking. The special-topics format allows deeper treatment of research frontiers: the micro-perforated surface story reported how 3D-printed suction panels change flow behaviour at the surface, reducing air friction and emissions in aviation, with the TU Braunschweig wind-tunnel test as the evidence. This is the magazine's editorial signature: the daily news for the market, the lexicon for the fundamentals, and the special topics for the research frontier — all in the digital-only format that lets a 2022-founded title compete with the monthly print journals on speed. The news items carry current image dates — October 2026 in the snapshot — documenting the daily publishing rhythm. The DFO's listing of Oberfläche Online among its publication channels, and the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft's documentation of the association's conference volumes, embed the digital magazine in the professional community's information infrastructure. For the surface-technology industry — the electroplaters, coaters, plant builders and their suppliers — the portal functions as the daily trade press: the top story for orientation, the news stream for the market, the lexicon for the terminology, and the English portal for the international business. In a sector where surface treatment is the cross-sectional technology running through automotive, mechanical engineering, electronics and medical technology, the digital magazine's daily rhythm matches the industry's own pace. The October 2026 snapshot — the energy-policy top story, the SensoTech and Trumpf and Verbio news items, the Evatec and Lesker and Edwards Vacuum international items — shows a newsroom covering the full width of the field, from the German electroplater's energy bill to the Korean semiconductor-equipment market. That breadth, published daily and without print, is what distinguishes the 2022-founded digital magazine in the German surface-technology media landscape, every day.