Category Archive: Industry News

Registration Open for Powder Coating Week 2022

Posted by TWP on May 9, 2022 7:00 am | Comments Off

The Powder Coatings Institute’s Powder Coating Week 2022 returns to the Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld in Orlando, FL, from March 7 -9. The event will again be comprised of three separate programs that offer the perfect combination of training, keynote presentations, technical sessions, tabletop exhibits, roundtable discussions, expert panels, and social activities. Three days packed with all things powder coating. Powder Coating Week 2022 is the best opportunity for everyone involved in powder coating to expand their knowledge and connect with others.

The schedule for the week has been condensed and allows Workshop and Custom Coater Forum attendees to visit the Tabletop Exhibition on the first evening. The week begins with PCI’s Powder Coating 101 Workshop on Monday, March 7, and Tuesday, March 8. The Custom Coater Forum will take place on Monday, March 7 as a one-day program. The Powder Coating Technical Conference begins with breakfast and an advanced general session on Tuesday, March 8, and continues with keynote speakers and breakout sessions through Wednesday, March 9. The Tabletop Exhibition will be open Monday evening and during Tuesday’s lunch and evening reception to allow attendees from all three events a chance to visit with exhibitors. A strong closing session on Wednesday morning features Adam Genei from Mobsteel, Detroit Steel Wheel Co. Attendees won’t want to miss Adam’s dynamic and important presentation about our workforce.

Battle for CARC Powder Coating

Posted by TWP on May 2, 2022 7:00 am | Comments Off

One of Beth Ann Pearson’s tasks as national product line manager for military coatings at Sherwin-Williams’ Product Finishes Division may be the most daunting of her career.

The company was awarded a $1.4 million research grant by the Department of Defense in June 2012 to develop a zero-volatile organic compound (VOC), zero-hazardous air pollutant (HAP) exterior topcoat to replace the military’s current generation of liquid-applied chemical agent resistant coatings (CARCs) by 2015.

“It’s a very challenging project,” says Pearson, a chemist by training who joined Sherwin-Williams in 2010 with almost two decades of experience in the coatings industry.

It’s also an extremely important project for the U.S. military as it seeks to protect service personnel from chemical attacks, as well as a game-changer for the U.S. powder coating industry.

Moving to Powder

“We are extremely interested in utilizing powder coating for a CARC application,” says Adam Goldstein, vice president of Consolidated Coating in Bellingham, Mass., which specializes in coating a variety of plastic and metal substrates, including military components. “Our company is constantly looking for innovation and new technologies that will simultaneously reduce our VOC emissions, while also increasing our production efficiency. A move to a powder coat CARC would fit both of these categories.”

Pearson’s research team knows that it must match coating durability with safety of troops.

“Far and above everything else, the most important asset that we need to protect is that of our armed forces personnel in the field of battle,” Pearson says. “We—as is the entire coatings industry—are being challenged to consistently improve CARC coatings capabilities.”

Military regulations require all tactical equipment, including ground support equipment, tactical wheeled vehicles and aircraft, to be hardened against the effects of both chemical warfare agents, and degradation caused by the cleaning and decontamination procedures necessary in the aftermath of a chemical attack. These regulations also are followed by the Marine Corps and apply to Air Force vehicles and equipment procured through the Army.

There currently are no commercially available powder coatings that meet the military’s specification MIL-PRF-32348 for powder coating using the camouflage CARC systems, Type III, Class I & II.

With the U.S. EPA breathing down its back, the DoD is under the gun to get more environmentally friendly coatings into its system. Current liquid-applied CARC topcoats supplied by coatings vendors emit about 5.2 million lbs per year of VOCs and HAPs.

The agency turned to Sherwin-Williams, which has lowered VOC emissions in commercialized water-dispersible CARC topcoats from 3.5 lb/gal in solvent-borne CARC to 1.8 lb/gal in water-dispersible CARC. The company also was the first to release a zero-VOC epoxy primer qualified to the MIL-DTL-53022 Type IV specification.

Global Chemical Resistant Coatings Market to Grow at a CAGR of 5% During 2021-2026

Posted by TWP on April 11, 2022 7:00 am | Comments Off

Global Chemical Resistant Coatings Market Overview

Global Chemical Resistant Coatings Market size is forecast to reach US$8.3 billion by 2026, after growing at a CAGR of 5% during 2021-2026. Chemical resistant coatings are designed to protect against the harshest of chemicals. Various types of chemical resistant coatings such as epoxy, fluoropolymer, ethylene tetrafluoroethylene, and fluorinated ethylene propylene are provided excellent corrosion protection, cost-effectiveness, friction protection, impact resistance, and corrosion-resistant. Due to such properties these coatings are widely used in food & beverages, oil & gas, construction, water treatment, and rubber manufacturing which is growing the chemical resistant coatings market. Chemical-resistant coatings are ideal in low pH levels that can withstand high temperatures and provide long life to the components. In addition, polyvinylidene fluoride is high quality based chemical resistant coatings used for chemical processing applications. Thus, the growing consumption of these coating types for weather protection is estimated to contribute to the chemical-resistant coatings industry growth.

Impact of COVID – 19

Due to COVID-19, the consumption of chemical resistant coatings has been decreased mainly from oil & gas sector. According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), Natural gas production from in the U.S. regions fallen by 316 MMcf/d from March to April 2021. Hence, the decreasing demand of coatings is creating a hindrance for the chemical-resistant coatings.

Global Chemical Resistant Coatings Market Segment Analysis – By Technology

Solvent-based held the largest share of the global chemical resistant coatings market in 2020. Solvent-based coatings technology can be applied directly sprayed or brushed for the floor coatings. Solvent-based technology has various properties such as the popularity of stains, sealers, and high-gloss paints, thus; it is widely used in the architectural industry for paints. Hence, owning to aforementioned factors solvent-based technology led the chemical resistant coatings market.

Global Chemical Resistant Coatings Market Segment Analysis – By Coatings Type

Epoxy coatings type dominated the global chemical resistant coatings market in 2020 followed by polyurethane coatings as they offer excellent impact resistance, corrosion resistance, and abrasion resistance. Epoxy coatings offer excellent barrier protection from alkali and caustic solutions, and other harsh chemicals. Additionally, polyurethane coatings are transparent and flexible at low temperature. Polyurethane is a great coating type which make material more durable. Polyurethane has a high load bearing capacity in both tension and compression which makes them ideal for automotive, construction, electronics, and other industries. Hence, due to such properties, these coatings are widely consumed as chemical-resistant coatings.

Building a Better CARC Coating

Posted by TWP on April 4, 2022 7:00 am | Comments Off

U.S. Army combat vehicle coatings provide chemical warfare agent protection as well as camouflage and corrosion resistance. A team from the U.S. Army Research Development and Engineering Command’s Edgewood Chemical Biological Center (ECBC) provided the Army with a more accurate method for evaluating the protective value of coatings purchased from vendors.

When it comes to protecting warfighters from exposure to chemical agents that have contaminated combat vehicles, determining how much agent gets absorbed into the material matters. That’s what researchers at ECBC discovered and helped the Army fix.

The U.S. Army uses over a million gallons of coating a year on its combat vehicles. One of the key jobs of a coating—in addition to providing corrosion resistance and camouflage—

is protecting its occupants from chemical agent exposure.

The key to this protection is to make sure vapor and contact hazards do not linger after soldiers and maintenance personnel believe they have decontaminated a vehicle. What the Army needs is a coating that resists chemical agent absorption in the first place, so that there is no agent left to resurface after decontamination efforts are completed.

Flaws in the Existing Method

For decades, the method for determining the chemical agent resistance of a coating was to place a known amount of chemical agent on a coating sample under engineering-controlled laboratory conditions, wash it with isopropyl alcohol, then measure how much agent vapor re-emitted from the exposed material in the air above it after 22 hours. However, ECBC researchers who specialize in material decontamination have learned that some coating materials can absorb agent and then re-emit it slowly over a much longer period of time.

By reviewing the Army’s current chemical agent resistance method, ECBC researchers determined that the vapor collection accounted for only 43 percent of the agent actually in the coating sample. The remaining 57 percent was still trapped in the material and would continue to come out long after the 22-hour measurement window. The researchers recognized this as a significant flaw and notified the vehicle coatings commodity area manager, John Escarsega at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory.

“The commodity area manager realized right away that he was relying on a broken metric and was eager for our help in creating an accurate method for measuring agent resistance and retention,” says Brent Mantooth, Ph.D., a lead researcher at ECBC. “The Army was so concerned, that developing a new agent resistance evaluation method became one of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s top 15 programs for 2015.”

Metal Finishing Chemical Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4% to 6% from 2020 to 2025

Posted by TWP on March 7, 2022 7:00 am | Comments Off

Trends, opportunities and forecast in metal finishing chemicals market to 2025 by product type (plating chemicals, conversion coatings, cleaning chemicals, and others), by process (electroplating, plating, polishing, anodizing, plasma spray coating, and Others.), materials (zinc, nickel, chromium, aluminum, copper, precious metals, and others), end use industry (automotive, electrical & electronics, aerospace, construction, and others), and region
Lucintel’s latest market report analyzed that metal finishing chemical provides attractive opportunities in the automotive, electrical & electronics, aerospace, construction, and others industries. The metal finishing chemical market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4% to 6%. In this market, plating chemical is the largest segment by product type, whereas automotive is largest by end use industry.

Based on product type, the metal finishing chemical market is segmented into plating chemicals, conversion coatings, cleaning chemicals, and others. The plating chemical segment accounted for the largest share of the market in 2020 and is expected to register the highest CAGR during the forecast period, due to chemicals provide superior surface properties, such as corrosion resistance, wear resistance, hardness as well as electrical conductivity to the metal surface.

Consistency in Curing

Posted by TWP on March 1, 2022 7:00 am | Comments Off

Q: I run a small powder coating operation and we are having trouble with getting consistent results from our curing cycle. What are some of the things that might contribute to inconsistent quality?

There are a wide range of variables that might contribute to quality issues post-cure. Oven dwell time and air temperature are important factors in getting your parts up to cure temperature. Substrate type, thickness and configuration also play an important role because ultimately it is the temperature of the part itself that is most critical to achieving a proper cure for the powder coating. Keep in mind that in order to achieve the maximum physical properties and performance of the coating, it must be fully cured.

In simple terms, the equation for cure is as follows:

Temperature + Time = Cure.

In more technical terms, cure is the measure of the crosslinked oligomer chains to fully reach double bonds residing in the powder coating matrix following exposure to the curing process.

Paying attention to the cure window is crucial. If parts are not reaching the recommended cure window for the product it can lead to under-cure or over-cure of the powder coating.

Issues associated with under-cure are as follows:

- Poor mechanical property
- Poor chemical property
- Color not fully developed
- Gloss at lower level
- Poor adhesion
- Poor MEK results (Reagent A or B)
- Incorrect appearance (grainy)
- Cracking or grazing especially on clear coat powder

Issues associated with over-cure:

Color out of specification (for example, a white coating turning yellow)
Very brittle (poor adhesion)
Poor mechanical property
Gloss fluctuation
Burning or deterioration of the powder coating
Poor adhesion
Delamination of the powder coating

When it comes to primer and topcoat, it is always necessary to make sure that the primer is gelled rather than cured. If primer is allowed to fully cure, the following problems may occur:

Delamination issue
Inter-coat adhesion issue primer and top-coat

Non-reactive Cleaning for Powder Coating

Posted by TWP on February 7, 2022 7:00 am | Comments Off

Growing your business often hinges on expanding your offerings. Perhaps no one knows that better than Midlake Products & Mfg. Co. Inc. Based in Louisville, Ohio, the company got its start as an industrial and custom hinge manufacturer in 1987. What started as a small family operation run out of a garage has grown into a 65,000 square foot facility that produces more than 650,000 hinges per year. Over the years, Midlake has expanded its offerings to provide its customers with a variety of metal fabricated components and machine parts. The company offers laser cutting, CNC bending, welding, hardware insertion and finishing, and continues to investigate capabilities to add to its roster. After several years of consideration, Midlake recently added a powder coating line.

“We didn’t necessarily aspire to be a powder coater,” says Jeff Rich, president of Midlake. “But over the years, we kind of continued to look back and say, ‘powdercoating is something that we’re probably going to need to have in our shop.’”
According to Rich, the company had been outsourcing powder coating for approximately 30 years. Midlake had set the stage for further expansion, but was torn between adding more capacity for existing capabilities and adding something new.

“We had added onto our facility in 2012 with a 20,000 square foot addition,” Rich explains. “At the time we only needed 10,000, but were keeping this other 10,000 square feet available for some new capability. At the time, we weren’t quite sure it was going to be powder — but everything just kept leading back to powder coating.”

Cleaning first
Rich says that the tipping point in the decision happened in 2018 at the metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing expo FABTECH. Much of his time at the show was spent investigating powder coating and talking to equipment and chemical suppliers. Rich was determined to glean some details to help make an informed decision and recalls that one of the factors that convinced Midlake to move forward with a powder coating line was a pretreatment chemistry that he learned about at the show.

“As we were exploring the potential of bringing powder coating in-house, the cleaning seemed like the first step of that process,” he says.

Experiment study on the corrosion resistance of the surface metamorphic layer of grinding

Posted by TWP on February 1, 2022 7:00 am | Comments Off

Workpiece will face corrosive problems during its application after the manufacturing process. As the common final process, grinding can generate special metamorphic layer on the surface of workpiece and change the initial corrosion resistance of workpiece. In order to study the corrosion resistance of workpiece after grinding process, the paper carries on combining experiment of grinding and electrochemical corrosion. The characteristic of corrosion resistance of grinding is revealed based on the association of grinding mechanism and electrochemical theory. The corrosion potential of workpiece after grinding is higher than matrix, which shows the grinding surface is difficult to begin to corrode. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) shows the grinding surface has large phase angle, impedance and capacitance characteristic because the metamorphic layer of grinding has good obstructive ability. They reveal that grinding improves the surface corrosion resistance of workpiece. Then the mechanism of the corrosion resistance of grinding is revealed. The special grain boundary formed in grinding with much C element, large clusters and complex shape prolongs the corrosion channel, which reduces the corrosive speed. While, the sensitive hardening structure generated in grinding hardening with much free energy is easy to form the corrosion cell, which will accelerate the corrosion.

Introduction
Grinding is always the final procedure in the manufacturing process, which will decide the final characteristic of surface layer and its surface integrity of the workpiece. So the grinding has a key meaning to technology level of the modern equipment manufacturing1,2,3. Before the grinding process, the workpiece is always machined by all kinds of cutting process, such as the turning, milling, boring and planning. Therefore, the grinding, on the one hand, needs to lower the machining errors of the former process and increase the machining precision of workpiece, then needs to obtain the high quality of surface integrity in the surface layer during the process on the other hand4,5,6,7. Grinding uses the abradant to remove the materials of workpiece. The grinding wheel has a large linear velocity and the strain rate of the processed material is large8,9. Combining with the cutting effect with large numbers of abrasive grain, large grinding force and high grinding temperature are generated during the grinding process, adding the factors of mechanical vibration.

Powder Coating Week Returns to Orlando in 2022

Posted by TWP on January 10, 2022 7:00 am | Comments Off

Three days packed with all things powder coating! The Powder Coating Institute (PCI) has announced Powder Coating Week 2022 is set to return to the Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld in Orlando, FL, from March 7 -9. The event comprises three separate programs that offer a combination of training, keynote presentations, technical sessions, tabletop exhibits, roundtable discussions, expert panels, and social activities.

The week kicks off with PCI’s Powder Coating 101 Workshop on Monday, March 7, and Tuesday, March 8. The Custom Coater Forum will take place on Monday, March 7 as a one-day program. The Powder Coating Technical Conference begins with breakfast and an advanced general session on Tuesday, March 8, and continues with keynote speakers and breakout sessions through Wednesday, March 9.

The Tabletop Exhibition will be open Monday evening and during Tuesday’s lunch and evening reception to allow attendees from all three events a chance to visit with exhibitors. Wednesday morning’s closing session will feature Adam Genei from Mobsteel, Detroit Steel Wheel Co. discussing his workforce development formula, which has created a positive, invested and competitive team for his worldwide brands. Genei’s enthusiasm for the American workforce is infectious and will have attendees walking away with ways to improve their own company culture and business.

“We are so excited to return to the Renaissance Orlando in March where we have had excellent Powder Coating Week events the past several years. We are even more excited about the growth and diversity this event is seeing,” says Kevin Coursin, PCI Executive Director. “We had so many first-timers last year and those who were just beginning in the powder coating industry. Plus, many of them were younger people who are the future of industrial finishing. We can’t wait to see everyone again in March in Orlando.”

Cleaning Stainless Steel

Posted by TWP on January 3, 2022 7:00 am | Comments Off

Stainless steels are highly corrosion resistant—however, stainless steel applications can still remain at risk to surface damage. Oxidation, corrosion, rusting, or staining can occur over the long-term in harsh environments without routine cleaning and maintenance. Repeat mechanical damage also contributes to a faster degradation of the metal.

All stainless steels contain at least 10.5% chromium by weight. It is this chromium content that creates a shield called the passive layer, which protects stainless steel from corrosion—unlike other steels. The higher the chromium content, the greater the corrosion resistance. Stainless steel rusting occurs when the passive layer is damaged and there is not enough chromium for it to reform.

How does the passive layer work?
The passive layer is created as the chromium content in the stainless steel’s surface reacts to oxygen. The passive layer acts as a protective barrier, preventing further oxidation of the stainless steel. In comparison, ordinary carbon steel surfaces form ferric oxide when exposed to oxygen. Ferric oxide does not form a continuous layer, so it eventually spalls off, leaving raw steel exposed and prone to a destructive rusting cycle.

The passive layer of stainless steel is self-repairing. If it is damaged, chromium in the exposed stainless steel will react with oxygen to form new chromium oxide. As long as there is sufficient chromium present, the chromium oxide layer will continue to reform and protect the stainless steel surface.

Causes of stainless steel corrosion
Chromium can protect stainless steel if the localized concentration is 12% or higher. Anything reducing the localized chromium concentration below the 12% threshold will cause staining or rust. Common causes of stainless steel corrosion include chlorides, hydrochloric acids, sulfuric acids, iron or carbon steel contact, and high temperatures. There are over 150 grades of stainless steel, and some are more prone to corrosion than others. The corrosion resistance and other useful properties of stainless steel are enhanced by increasing the chromium content, or by the addition of other elements such as molybdenum, nickel, and nitrogen.

Chlorides
Chromium oxide is particularly vulnerable to chlorides. Corrosion is accelerated in coastal areas with salt-spray exposure, and in areas where de-icing salts are used during winter. Components for the chemical and food industries have high chromium content to compensate for regular exposure to chlorine, salt, and other corrosive substances.