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Editor’s Note

Environmentally & Economically Sustainable Technologies for the Future

— Darrell J Reeve

Our surface finishing industry has gone through dramatic changes in recent years and continues to do so as competition increases, regulations tighten and newly developed, specific application finishing systems emerge on to the market. The scope of the industry and finishing systems available now bear little relationship to what existed just a decade ago - it is really a whole new industry. We will seek to continually update our readers on these changes as they occur.

 

Coating Applications

Deposition of Silver Layers via Spraying

— Koen Staelens, Jet Metal Technologies, France

Since the start of the company in 2007, Jet Metal Technologies (Lyon, France) focused its efforts to place its unique in-line metallization technology by spraying on the market for decorative applications in cosmetic and alcoholic bottle applications. In such decorative applications, a layer stack consisting of a base coat varnish (~20 μm), a thin silver layer (~80 nm) and a protective top coat varnish (~20 μm) is used.

 

Automotive Painting

Painting Trends in the Automotive Industry: Further Increases in Quality, Efficiency, & Flexibility for Automobile Painting

— Doris Schulz, Germany

Changing customer requirements, ever-stricter quality demands, shorter and shorter model lifecycles, increasing use of lightweight design technologies as well as advancing digitalisation and networking of manufacturing processes are occupying the automotive industry and its suppliers where vehicle painting is involved as well. Companies in the field of industrial painting technology are working on innovative solutions for all conceivable applications, in order to do justice to the challenges resulting from these trends.

 

Protective Coatings

Two-component & One-component Waterbased Zinc Rich Paints with Exceptional Corrosion Resistance

— Kenichi Nakamura, Roval, Japan; Pascal Verbiest, Ph.D, EverZinc, Belgium

A two-component waterbased zinc-rich paint (2K WB ZRP) was developed, based on a polyurethane resin, with a zinc content of 95% in the dry film. This zinc-rich waterbased paint has a VOC of 38g/l which is considerably lower than the VOC of current solvent based zinc-rich paint systems (varying between 300~600 g/l). Corrosion tests, mechanical tests and chemical tests of this waterbased paint reveal its excellent behaviour versus conventional solvent based zinc-rich paints and versus hot dip galvanizing systems. A pot life of 8 hours assures a good workability of the paint.

 

Electroplating Solutions

ZICOLLUM™ Chromium-free Zinc & Aluminum Coating System

— Nicholas Chang, Winstar Chemicals Co., Ltd.

Corrosion is a common challenge faced by many industries. Different new corrosion resistant technologies are introduced to reduce the corrosion cost. ZICOLLUM™ Chromium-free Zinc & Aluminum Coating System is one of them. Passing 14,400 hours of Neutral Salt Spray (NSS) test, ZICOLLUM™ has become an impressive product in the corrosion resistance industry. The special application knowledge of its developer enables the adjustability of corrosion resisting ability so as to fit the requirements of railway, wind power generators, automotive industry, construction industry, marine protective coating industry, etc.

 

Electrochemical Process

Water – In and Out!

— Mr. Darrell J. Reeve, Member of Institute of Materials Finishing and Australasian Institute of Surface Finishing, AISF

The water supply problem in China and Asia generally is not being solved. Desalination has been adopted by many countries but this is a high energy consuming process and is already having a negative impact on the eco-systems in some parts of the world where the increase in the number of Desal plants has brought about an increase in the salt content of the sea water (in surrounding areas). This is starting to have disastrous effects on some of the bottom end of the sea food chain with some micro-organisms and small sea creatures finding it difficult or impossible to survive. This then, of course, has a flow-on effect right up the food chain. There will need to be some control and limits put on Desal plants on an International level in the future.

 

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