(77f) Ultrafine Powder Coatings, an Innovation for the Coating Industry

Powder coating is an environmentally friendly method for decorative and protective coatings, with clear advantages over liquid coatings. However, only relatively coarse powders are used currently, leading to rough surface finishing and therefore limited application on low-end products such as underhood components on automobiles. Although it is understood finer particles will provide much better surface quality, they haven't been used so far because strong interparticle forces make them very cohesive and agglomerate badly.

An ultrafine powder technology has been developed by our research group that allows the complete fluidization of ultrafine particles down to nanometer size. Using this technology, powder coatings with average particle sizes between 10.0 microns and 20.0 microns have been successfully applied in production settings, producing high-quality surface finishing comparable with the liquid coatings used for automobile exteriors. Compared with standard powder coatings, the new ultrafine powder coatings reduce surface roughness 80 to 90 percent and cut powder use 25 to 50 percent, while maintaining the same surface protection. This article explains this new powder coating technology.